TncKano-i^)  IS  neui?). 

Vo^ofV\  Csv\iil  e.duca'V^Ovi 


Vocational  Education 


Reprint  of  the  Indiana  Vocational  Education  Law,  and  of 
Articles  from  The  Indianapolis  News  on  Vocational  Edu- 
cation Methods  in  Several  States  and  on  the  Theory  of 
Education  Organized  to  Meet  New  Economic  Conditions 


The  reprint  of  the  articles  included  in  this  pamphlet  and  of  the  new  Indiana  vocational  education  law,  is  at 
the  request  of  the  National  Society  for  the  Promotion  of  Industrial  Education,  of  which  William  C.  Redfield,  secre- 
tary of  commerce  in  President  Wilson’s  cabinet,  is  president,  and  C.  A.  Prosser  is  secretary;  and,  also,  of  the  Indi- 
ana Bankers’  Association  and  several  other  organizations  taking  a deep  interest  in  reorganization  of  the  school  system. 
The  new  Indiana  law  is  generally  regarded  as  the  best,  as  well  as  the  latest  enactment,  authorizing  vocational  education. 
The  reproduced  articles  were  written  to  illuminate  its  intent  and  to  give  information  about  experience  with  vocational 
education  as  tried  elsewhere.  While  the  articles  deal  largely  with  vocational  education  in  New  York  and  Massachusetts 
this  is  true  only  because  certain  schools  and  methods  in  those  states  are  especially  described  as  convenient  types  illus- 
trating the  general  subject  and  it  should  be  stated  that  vocational  schools,  both  private  and  public,  in  many  states  were 
visited  in  the  course  of  the  study  of  the  subject.  It  was  necessary  to  condense  the  material  into  ten  articles  and  to 
write  them  in  popular  form  for  general  newspaper  reading,  and  to  do  this  it  was  found  convenient  to  use  as  types  schools 
that  were  last  visited  on  a trip  which  started  in  the  west  and  ended  in  Massachusetts.  The  purpose  of  the  inquiry  was 
not  only  to  consider  the  need  for  reorganization  of  the  present  school  system  and  to  point  out  the  merits  of  vocational 
education,  but  to  find  the  weaknesses  of  the  new  educational  proposal  and  the  dangers  whi;^  it  is  likely  to  encounter. 
[Indianapolis,  June  1.  1913.]  THE  INDIANAPOLIS  NEWS. 


Feeling  That  Schools  Should 
Reach  Greater  Per  Cent,  of 
, Children  Is  Widespread. 


NEED  OF  VOCATIONAL  WORK 


Necessity  for  Training  Tpward  Effi- 
ciency Recognized  Both  by  Em- 
ployers and  Workers. 


IBy  E.  I.  Lewis,  Staff  Correspondent  of  The 
- Indianapolis  News] 

WASHINGTON.  April  18.— The  educa- 
tional plant  of  this  country  represents  a 
billion  dollars  of  value.  The  annual  mere 
maintenance  cost  of  the  common  schools 
is  $500,000,000  and  another  $100,000,000  an- 
‘nually  goes  to  the  higher  educational 
schools.  The  time  has  come  when  few 
who  are  thinking  about  the  matter,  ex- 
cept the  educators  of  the  domineering 
Old-line  school,  are  entirely  satisfied  with 


the  returns  from  the  expensive  plant  or 
the  great  annual  outlay. 

The  product  of  these  schools  is  now  be- 
ing labeled  “book  learning.”  There  seems 
to  be  an  awakening  to  the  fact  that  at 
least  50  per  cent,  of  the  children— or  their 
parents— in  this  industrial  age  realize  that 
they  need  efficient  hand  learning.  There 
is  a growing  protest  that  is  beginning  to 
be  heard  against  taxation  which  provides 
an  education  adapted  really  to  the  future 
bread  earning  and  homemaking  lives  of 
only  10  per  cent,  of  the  children  and  leaves 
the  other  90  per  cent,  who  must  work 
largel.v  with  their  hands,  with  compara- 
tively no  training  for  the  real  life  work 
before  them. 

Why  Children  Quit  School. 

Statistics  to  some  folk  are  always  dull. 
But  here  are  some  very  simple  state- 
ments that  just  at  this  time  should  bo 
of  exceptional  interest  and  that  are  easily 
understood.  Cleveland  is  a typical  Amer- 
ican city.  Fifty  per  cent,  of  the  children 
for  whom  taxation  is  levied  for  education 
quit  school  by  the  end  of  the  fifth  grade 
and  iX)  per  cent,  do  not  get  beyond  the 
sixth.  St.  Louis  is  another  typical  Amer- 
ican city,  and  it  boasts  of  its  public 
school  plant  and  service,  and  still  72  per 
cent,  of  the  children  leave  school  by^the 
end  of  the  sixth  grade  simply  because 
the  children  themselves,  or  their  parents, 
do  not  find  in  the  schools  those  things 
which  meet  the  needs  of  these  children 
for  their  future  life,  or  fall  to  interest  the 
constructive  hands  of  the  children.  Simi- 
lar statistics  for  Indiana  are  not  at  this 
time  and  place  available,  but  they  will  be 
presented  in  time.  It  is  expected  that 
they  will  not  be  far  from  the  national  to- 
tals, which  show  that  90  per  cent,  of  the 
children  between  the  ages  of  fourteen  and 
sixteen  are  out  of  the  schools. 


• ® '^1'®  now  millions  of  boys  and  girls 

in  this  country,  between  the  ages  of  four- 
teen  and  eighteen  years,  who  are  out  of 
school  and  in  the  wage  earning  ranks. 
According  to  figures  compiled  by  the 
National  Society  for  the  Promotion  of 
Industrial  Education,  more  than  seven 
out  of  ten  did  not  complete  the  elemen- 
tary schools;  more  than  three  out  of  four 
did  not  reach  the  eighth  year  of  school: 
more  than  one  out  of  two  did  not  reach 
the  seventh  year,  and  almost  half  did  not 
complete  the  fifth  grade.  Great  num- 
bers are  said,  by  investigators,'^©  be  able 
barely  to  meet  the  tests  for ' literacy 
necessary  to  obtain  working  certificates, 
which  in  most  states  are  based  on  the 
work  of  the  fourth  grades  of  the  public 
schools.  These  boys  and  girls,  as  citizens, 
will  be  deficient  not  only  in  vocational 
efficiency — in  producing  national  wealth — 
but  in  civic  intelligence.  New  conditions 
are  increasing  rather  than  lessening  this 
unfavorable  condition.  The  defect  is  now 
held  to  be  largely  one  of  educational 
policy.  Germany’s  vocational  education 
policy  is  aimed  nbt  only  to  produce  effi- 
cient workers  to  enrich  Germany,  but  to 
produce  a higher,  better  employed  and 
contented  mass  of  people  to  understand 
German  problems  and  to  sustain  the  na- 
tion by  intelligent  and  patriotic  citizen- 
ship. 

The  elaborate  school  plant  above  the 
purely  elementary  grades  is  carried  by 
taxation  of  all  for  the  benefit  of  the  10  per 
cent,  or  even  20  per  cent.,  if  leeway  is  de- 
sired in  statement— who  are  able  to  play 
for,  or  are  aiming  at,  the  “white  shirt  and 
standing  collar  jobs”  of  life.  The  elab- 
orate superstructure  of  “higher  educa- 
tional plants  and  teaching”  is  for  a much 
smaller  percentage,  who  pursue  the  “cul- 
tural course”  to  its  end.  There  is  provi- 
sion for  educating  lawyers,  doctors, 
s^tilled  engineers  and  experfs  in  farming, 
and  for  rounding  out  the  lives  of  those 
who  are  going  to  take  life  easy,  all  at 
public  expense.  But,  nationally  speaks 


2 


VOCATIONAL  EDUCATION 


Inp.  it  Bceins  to  ho  a fflot  that  CO  por 
cent.,  or  lialf  of  the  school  children  of 
the  country,  drop  out  at  the  fifth  prade, 
and  therefore  the  structure  above  that 
is  for  the  service  of  only  half  the 
children  and  considerably  over  lialf  of 
them  abandon  it  for  the  ileld  of  produel - 
tve  labor  before  the  elementary  course 
end4. 

Protest  From  Many  Sources. 

A protest  or  demand  for  chaiiKO  Is  for- 
mulatlnp.  It  does  not  come  from  any 
one  quarter.  This  fact  is  Illustrated  here 
in  Washington  by  the  personnel  of  I’resl- 
dent  Wilson’s  cabinet.  The  new  secre- 
tary of  commerce  is  William  C.  Uedfield, 
» manufacturer  long  identified  with  the 
National  Association  of  Manufacturers. 
The  new  and  first  secretary  of  labor  is 
W.  B.  Wilson,  a miner,  long  secretary- 
treasurer  of  the  United  Mine  Workers 
during  tli«  regime  of  John  Mitchell,  and 
♦auaTIy  tong  identified  with  the  American 
Federation  of  Labor.  Both  of  the.se  men 
have  been  trained  to  look  on  life  from 
different  angles  of  view,  but  both  have 
one  common  analysis  of  the  need  of 
the  new  industrial-commercial  age— 
“efficiency.” 

An  educational  plant  which  does  not 
meet  the  future  needs  of.  say,  anywhere 
from  50  to  90  per  cent,  of  the  citizens -of 
tomorrow  and  really  meets  the  life  needs 
•r  poislbly  10  per  cent,  is  not,  to  either, 
a fulfillment  or  our  national  educational 
claim  of  “education  for  and  of  the 
masses.”  Secretary  Wilson,  as  a r^ember 
of  congress,  introduced  the  big  vocational 
education  bill  Into  the  house,  and  it  took 
his  name  and  that  of  Senator  Page,  of 
Vermont,  in  its  label — “the  Page-Wilson 
bill.”  Redfield  became  head  of  the  Na- 
tional Society  for  the  Promotion  of  In- 
dustrial Education,  and  in  congress  the 
principal  second  and  supporter  of  Con- 
gressman  Wilson's  bill  for  federal  aid  of 
states  for  vocational  education.  Avowedly 
the  bill’s  provision  of  $9,000,000  was  only 
an  entering  wedge  by  which  there  is  to 
be  begun  in  this  country  an  overhauling 
or  elaboration  of  the  great  educational 
plant  along  the  lines  in  which  Germany 
has  led  in  training  every  child  for  a 
greater  usefulness  and  efficiency  in  his 
and  her  life  work. 

National  Government  to  Lead. 

The  Page-Wilson  bill  went  into  slum- 
ber with  a lot  of  other  bills  In  the  change 
of  congress  March  4,  but  there  is  no 
doubt  In  the  minds  of  most  people  here 
that;  the  national  government  is  going  to 
take  this  leadership,  and  probably  on  a 
more  elaborate  scale  than  the  Page-Wil- 
Bon  bill  proposed.  Six  states  have  already 
prepared  the  way  for  this  reorganization. 
Massachusetts  led  seven  years  ago,  and 
it  has  vocational  schools;  New  York, 
Wisconsin,  Connecticut  and  Ohio  have 
taken  more  or  less  definite  steps,  and  the 
recent  session  pf  the  Indiana  legislature 


iidoiilf'd  Icgl.sliillnn  which  l.i*  t ck!! |■ll('l|  ;i!i, 
by  long  odds,  the  mopl  ciunplcl.  for  tin  ', 
nev,'  oi  g.'inizutlon. 

■•’or  fe;ir,  bowivir,  (hat  the  aftlliide  of 
S.  i ri-la  rle;-  Wilson  iind  Hi  dll!  Id  mu  m 
regarded  as  pei-sonal,  ralli,'r  Ilian  niui 
sontallve  of  ereal  eleineni:  of  iiopiilal Ion, 
II.  Is  well  to  (urn  to  olhir  riiord,.  'I'lu- 
I resolution  oti  (hl.i^  sulj.lei-t,  aflop'.il  lli** 
last  American  I'^cd  era  lion  of  Laln.r  con 
ventton.  reviews  the  Imding  of  II  . i tclal 
tnvesllgating  cominlllee,  winch  wctil  inlo 
the  matter  with  grc.il  research.  It  com- 
nu-nlH  on  annual  expenditure  of  $.aiXMH)(|.iKi0 
on  taxes  for  liopular  educalloii,  and  then 
.says:  “Not  only  are  wc  eonfronP  d by 
this  fa<'l  filial  fid  per  eeni,  of  the  j.'i.lidfl.Odafj 
children  leave  school  by  the  end  of  the 
sixth  grade),  Imt  of  the  .^i  per  cent,  who 
remain,  only  one  In  three  flnt.shes  the 
eighth  grade,  only  ono  in  five  enters  tin 
high  school  and  only  one  in  ihlrt.v  fln- 
l.shes  the  high  school  course.” 

A.  F.  of  L.  for  Broad  Education. 

Th  A.  F,  of  Ij.  stands  for  vocational 
education— efficient  education  of  the 
masses  for  their  life  work.  This  organi- 
zation, in  its  Toronto  declaration,  showed 
its  broad  view  of  this  subject  -that  mere- 
ly industrial  training  woubl  not  do.  “Wo 
want  the  I)Oy  and  girl  to  be  laugiit  ihc 
fundamentals  of  civics,  the  meaning  of 
government,  and  the  rea.son  that  the  law 
n.u.st  bo  obeyed.  * * • He  must  be  made 
to  realize  that  the  hoy  of  today  is  the 
voter  of  tomorrow.  • • should  he 

taught  something,  too,  of-  his  own  eco- 
nomic value  * • ’ These  sentences 

show  very  well  that  more  than  merely  th© 
three  R's  and  training  of  the  hands  is 
contemplated  by  labor  when  it  talks  of 
vocational  education.  'I'he  concluding  sen- 
tence of  the  Toronto  declaration  was: 
"We  want  men  as  well  as  mechanic.s.” 

Secretary  Wilson,  Jn  discussing  voca- 
tional education,  saidt  "Our  public  school 
system  is  the  best  system  of  instruction 
that  the  world  has  yet  produced.  It  con- 
veys not  only  the  rudiments,  but  develops 
the  ability  to  think.  But  after  we  pass 
the  grammar  grades  our  entire  system 
tends  toward  preparation  for  the  profes- 
sions and  for  clerical  work.  The  vast 
body  of  our  people  must,  of  necessity,  be 
engaged  in  agriculture  and  industrial 
pursuits.  Our  system  has  not  provided 
for  the  young  mind  and  hand  to  be 
taught  to  proceed  to  the  best  advantage 
in  agriculture  and  in  the  industries.  The 
commercial  supremacy  of  any  nation  is 
not  so  much  dependent  on  cheapness  as 
on  the  efficiency  of  its  labor.” 

Where  Organizations  Agree. 

. While  the  A.  P.  of  L.  does  not  repre- 
sent all  labor,  and  the  National  Associa- 
tion of  Manufacturers  doe's  not  represent 
all  capital,  still  it  is  significant  that  these 
two  organizations,  which  are  often  so 
radically  apart  and  even  in  hostility, 
should  have  one  mind  on  the  necessity 
of  a renovation  of  the  educational  plant. 
Both  see  that  it  leads  the  boy  and  girl 


Itilo  "tillnd  hIIi  v Job:  an  both  ferin 

1 bi  m*  iliHl  1:  , jfil,.,  that  ;i rr  tcrupucttrll v 
Hlll'iltr  drill  "billrr  lliiiii  p'-hool  wlxrn 
wi'  li /I)  iinthliii  II' i riil,'’  Put  Hmt  li-Hd 
icvlii'i-  t<ii-  III  lb  lid  wj'ii  limlH  lilmacif 
III  III  r I If  dilrin  III  woiTIThg  ill  :jii  adull 

for  II  chlbl'H  wiicc, 

’I'hi  labor  l■b■llll  nt  dn'  nut  Ictiurc  Ihn 
Mil  I nni:- 1 ,1  *;(  I fiMlurc.  fh*iiiKb  in-rlnipi'  i ha 
(nnib'iicv  lu  In  look  prliii:ii|I.  or  latgclv  on 
III!'  f.icl  llint  void  lion.!  I (dmotlon  (•lo- 
diii  i-.'  II  br  ill  r,  a inoii'  nnindi'd  nut  work- 
er nnil  one  with  .'i  broiiflni  ' i nf  iirider- 
sldinilng  din!  r-fflclenej'  lhal  will  fiire  lut- 
li-e  In  We  ■ iitjd  living  HldiirbirdH.  Tbc 
Miimildciiirer.s'  Av  oelaiinn  urge'  ttieni 
iioinli  •-Iron;;!;,  bill  ll  jiolriln  effi  el  i\ e|  •/ 
ill'll  lo  tin  fd'  I tbiil  tbe  time  In  ;il  h.iiid 
when  w«  iiiii.Mr  ifiinpele  in  the  greiil  world 
Willi  lin).' Ill  i|  mariufiieiiired  produets  with 
eoiiniri-  H , lii  h Hr  I'iernianv,  wbn'ii.  wllh 
the  Indplrollon  of  tlir-  grent  Blrrnarek.  I* 
educating  l ■■er.v  child  for  hl.i  and  hr  r 
Work  as  a skilled,  iiroiidl:.  rducaii  d,  r>'JO- 
nomlc  ftietur  rif  tiie  nation. 

A Manufacturer’s  Summary. 

IT.  10.  Miles,  chairman  of  the  nianufac- 
lurer.ii'  committer;  on  Iniiuslrlal  r rlneat ion, 
sumnidrlzes:  “(iiir  crluralora  ho  ■ hr  en 
like  Ihc  old-fimt;  rjpr:raloi;  of  biafd  fur- 
naees  who  threw  away  th<;  : lag  as  bolh- 
er.somc  and  worlhba:;,  not  knowing  that 
with  a little  care  It  woiihl  some  tbiv  b< 
made  into  cement  anri  better  thr  bfi  of 
the  world,  ft  Is  a tjucstlori,  hov.ever.  If 
our  educators  have  not  a"  often  thrown 
away  the  steel  as  the  cement.” 

And  again,  he  sumrnaiizr.-s:  "Other  na- 
tions, lacking  our  raw  malerials,  make 
tlie  cultivation  of  their  human  resources 
the  substantial  basis  of  ttieli  irrosircrlty 
and  happiness.  » • • \Ve  must  hence- 
forth sell  more  brains  anri  less  material. 
We  export  bjir  iron  and  import  razor 
blades;  export  hides  and  import  gloves; 
export  copper  and  import  bronzes:  export 
14-cent  cotton  and  buy  back  handker- 

chiefs that  sell  at  $40;  export  California 
prunes  and  import  ' them  back  from 
France  as  Bordeaux  fancy  prunes. 

Professor  Fischer,  of  Yale,  esti- 
mates the  human  capital,  the  hu- 

man resources  of  our  country,  at  $^,- 
000,000,000 — five  times  the  money  value  of 
all  other  resources  combined.  We  have 
been  developing  property  value;  and  our 
great  educational  plant  has  been  almost 
ignoring  the  greater  resource.  It  is  the 
development  of  this  resource  that  has 
made  Germany  a commanding  world  pow- 
er in  commerce.  France  and  Great  Brit- 
ain, the  other  two  of  our  great  competi- 
tors, are  moving  in  the  development  of 
this  great  resource.  Our  national  future 
is  wrapped  up  in  it,  and  with  it  the  con- 
tent of  the  people.” 

Industry,  as  referred  to  largely  in  this 
article,  is  not  all  of  the  problem.  'There 
is  the  girl  worker  and  her  future,  and  the 
great  agricultural  interests.  The  plans  for 
a vocational  overhauling  of  the  educa- 
tional plant  of  the  nation  covers  those 
problems.  They  will  be  touched  in  later 
articles.  / 


VOCATIONAL  EDUCATION 


3 


How  Vocational  Education  Is 
Planned  to  Hold  More 
Children  in  School. 


ITS  NEW  COURSES  OF  STUDY 


Effort  to  Keep  Untrained  Children 
From  Entering  “Blind  Alley”  Jobs 
That  Pay  Little  in  Long  Run. 


[By  12.  I.  Lems,  Staff  Correspondent  of  The 
Indianapolis  IsewsJ 

BOSTON,  April  22.— Advocates  of  voca- 
tional education  contend  that  any  system 
that  fails  to  meet  the  lifework  needs  of 
90  per  cent,  of  the  children  of  the  coun- 
try and  falls  to  hold  50  per  cent,  of  them 
in  the  schools  beyond  the  fifth  grade  is 
plainly  defective.  They  propose  to  remedy 
this  condition  of  affairs. 

Broadly  stated,  it  is  proposed  that  the 
school  plant  shall  give  fundamental  and 
elementary  academic  training,  but  shall 
also  directly  train  the  chiidfen  for  that  to 
which  their  hands  will  be  put  for  a liveli- 
hood. And  it  has  already  been  shown  that 
under  present  conditions,  at  least,  it  is 
inevitable  that  90  per  cent,  of  the  children 
who  are  in  the  schools  will  have  to  work 
with  their  hands. 

Under  the  proposed  change  the  schools 
will  teach  “applied  knowledge.”  At  pres- 
ent, it  is  asserted,  they  are  wholly  teach- 
ing “organized  knowledge  with  deferred 
value,”  or  academic  or  cultural  knowl- 
edge. Applied  knowledge  is  that  which 
shall  have  immediate  value— vocational 
application. 

"Applied  Knowledge”  Courses. 

The  new  education  does  not  mean  that 
the  schools  are  wholly  to  abandon  the 
field  of  teaching  organized  knowledge 
with  deferred  value.  It  does  mean,  how- 
ever, that  in  addition  to  teaching  of  this 
character  the  state  shall  provide  schools 
or  definite,  separate  courses  of  study,  in 
which  three  “applied  knowledge”  courses 
shall  be  taught.  They  are; 

1.  Industrial  education.  There  are 
over  two  hundred  and  seventy  indus- 
tries in  Indiana.  Not  ten  of  them  are 
within  the  definite  aim  of  the  present 
plan  of  education.  The  Industrial  edu- 
cation proposed  does  not  mean  public 
schools  or  courses  of  study  in  each 
community  that  will  bring  the  boy  or 
girl  with  a certain  knowledge  ready 
for  effective  application  to  the  door  of 
each  one  of  these  industries.  It  is  not 
expected  that  any  city  in  Indiana  will 
even  equal  Munich’s  forty-seven  differ- 
ent specific  vocational  courses.  But 
courses  can  be  selected  that  will  be 
largely  adaptable  to  the  needs  of  the 
state’s  industries. 

2.  Agricultural  education.  These 
schools  or  courses  are  to  apply  knowl- 
edge and  trained  skill  to  the  tillage  of 
the  soil,  care  of  domestic  animals,  for- 
estry and  other  useful  work  on  the 
farm— are  to  forward  the  work  of  mak- 
■fne  two  blades  of  grass  grow  wh^re 


one  or  none  is  growing  now,  and  to 
meet  with  increased  products  of  the 
soil  the  tremendous  increase  In  the 
number  of  mouths  to  feed.  It  is  to  be, 
in  short,  an  effort  to  raise  Indiana’s 
average  yield  of  fourteen  bushels  of 
wheat  an  acre  to  Denmark’s  forty-two 
bushels,  to  bring  Indiana’s  average  of 
ninety-two  bu.shels  of  potatoes  an  acre 
up  to  Germany’s  two  hundred  bushels 
average:  to  raise  Indiana’s  twenty- 
nine  bu.shels  of  oats  an  acre  to  Ger- 
many’s .50.7.  This  is  the  great  prob- 
lem of  the  nation's  future— food’s  effi- 
cient production  and  with  it  goes  the 
study  of  marketing. 

3.  Household  arts  education.  This  is 
necessarily  for  the  girls  in  school.  The 
constant  change  from  an  agricultural 
to  an  industrial,  or,  rather,  manufac- 
turing status,  is  increasing. the  number 
of  girls  that  go  into  productive  or 
wage-earning  industry,  and  the  indus- 
trial education  outlined  above,  is  by 
no  means  limited  to  bbys,  as  will  be 
shown  in  articles  descriptive  of  girls’ 
industrial  schools.  But  girls  also  need 
another  kind  of  “applied  knowledge.” 

It  is  still  necessary  to  build  a girl’s 
education,  no  matter  whether  she  is 
immediately  destined  to  wage  earning, 
mf’  the  expectation  that  she  will  mar- 
ry, have  a home  and  be  the  mother  of 
a family. 

“Dismal  Procession  of  Untrained.” 

Here,  briefly  is  surveyed  the  broad  field 
of  an  educational  plan  which  will  bring 
the  boy  and  girl  up  to  the  threshold  of 
life’s  work  much  as  the  present  system 
brings  the  lawyer,  medical  man,  engineer 
and  other  professional  workers.  This  ed- 
ucation is  especially  proposed  for  boys 
and  girls  between  the  ages  of  fourteen 
and  sixteen  years.  The  new  Indiana  laws 
also  provide  for  preliminary  vocational 
training  in  the  elementary  schools.  It  Is 
expected  that  by  the  time  the  child  is 
fourteen,  it  will  have  acquired  a "com- 
mon school  education.”  This  “cultured 
education”  is  not  to  be.  eliminated  after 
fourteen  years  of  age,  but  where  the  vo- 
cational schools  or  classes  are  estab- 
lished, at  least  half  of  the  time  is  to  be 
given  to  education  of  direct  vocational 
aim  and  value.  The  last  Indiana  legisla- 
ture also  extended  the  state’s  control  over 
children  from  their  fourteenth  to  six- 
teenth year. 

W.  C.  Redfleld,  in  his  recent  address  in 
Indianapolis— just  before  he  was  elevated 
to  the  cabinet  as  secretary  of  commerce 
under  President  • Wilson — remarked  on 
“the  dismal  procession  of  the  untrained 
that  emerges  from  the  schools  and  comes 
into  the  factories,”  which  he  showed 
must  be  Industrial  kindergartens.  The 
reason  that  the  German  factory  system  is 
so  Impressive  today  is  that  the  factories 
have  ceased  to  be  kindergartens.  With 
children  trained  into  young  manhood  and 
womanhood  to  enter  the  work,  the  Ger- 
man factory  can  devote  Itself  to  the  prob- 
lems of  production  instead  of  schooling. 
Anyone  who  knows  world  commerce 
knows  it  is  foolish  to  argue  that  this 
is  solely  to  the  benefit  of  the  manufac- 
turer. It  is  one  of  the  things  that  has 
made  the  world  spell  Germany  with  a 
very  large  “G.”  The  same  application 
can  be  made  to  the  farms.  Little,  poor- 
soil  Germany  produces  95  per  cent,  of  her 
meat,  85  per  cent,  of  her  breadotuffs  for 
her  millions. 

There  is  another  side  to  this  kind  of  a 
schooling.  It  is  of  direct  personal,  pe- 
cuniary advantage  to  the  Individual.  Take 
the  boy  especially,  and  aI9o  the  girl,  who, 
with  the  parent  behind  the  child,  tires 
of  a schooling  that  has  no  apparent  or 
immediate  connection  with  the  life.  Just 
as  soon  as  the  child  gets  past  the  com- 
pulsory attendance  age,  the  boy  especially 
—and  more  and  more  often  with  each  suc- 
ceeding year  his  sister— drops  out  of 
school.  Thus  it  comes  that,  taking  the 
country  over,  from  eighty-eight  to  ntnety- 
two  children  out  of  a hundred  of  fourteen 
to  sixteen  years,  are  out  of  school. 


"Blind  Alley”  Jobs, 

The  boy  or  the  girl  enters,  more  than 
often,  a "blind  alley,”  or  a "dead  end’* 
job.  That  is  a job  that  offers  a fairly  at- 
tractive wage  for  a child,  but  leads  to 
nowhere  but  a shifting,  shiftless  life  or 
to  a child’s  wage  for  the  adult  that  stays 
with  it. 

Vocational  education  aims  are  to  equip 
such  children  with  the  particular  general 
schooling  for  Industry  that  will  lead  to 
development.  This  thing  has  been  re- 
duced to  figures.  A lifetime  of  work  In 
a “blind  alley”  occupation  will  bring  in 
$20,000;  an  education  which  leads  on  in 
industry  will  yield  $40,000  in  a lifetime. 
And  this  is  industrial,  not.  pi'ofessional 
work  that  is  being  discsissed. 

The  national  Interest  in  such  education 
is  great,  as  Germany  has  shown.  We  sell 
Germany,  for  example,  14  cents’  worth  of 
raw  cotton,  representing  little  labor  and 
still  less  brains.  Germany  sells  us  hack 
that  cotton  for  $40.  representing  $39.86 
worth  of  labor,  skill  and  brains.  This 
analysis  can  be  carried  on  indefinitely. 
This  nation  has  the  raw  materials.  It 
needs  the  fully  developed  worker- the 
$40,000  Industrial  worker  Instead  of  the 
$20,000  one.  This,  it  is  argued,  also  means 
better  homes,  more  buying  and  selling, 
more  children,  and  higher  general  intelli- 
gence. Whenever  we  raise  two  potatoes 
for  one  and  educate  our  people  in  mar- 
keting, it  means  cheaper  and  better  liv- 
ing, too. 

Plan  for  Relief 

The  plan  briefly  outlined  for  making  all 
citizens  efficient— though,  of  course,  all 
never  will  be  so— is  as  follows: 

1.  Preliminary  Industrial,  agricul- 
tural and  domestic  training  in  the 
grades  which  will  serve  as  giving  an 
opportunity  for  expression  and  guid- 
ance in  picking  out  a vocation. 

2.  Vocational  training,  beginning  at 
fourteen  years  and  lasting  at  least 
through  the  early  adolescent  age,  to 
sixteen  years.  This  is  to  be  given  in 
schools  that  run  all  day  Just  as  the 
present  schools  do,  but  in  which  the 
academic  education  is  secondary  to, 
and  fitted  into,  a general  plan  to  pro- 
duce a worker  for  a vocation.  These 
schools,  however,  may  b©  so  organ- 
ized, that  children  who,  at  fourteen, 
years,  enter  on  a wage-earning  em- 
ployment, may  or  shall  go  to  them 
part  of  their  time;  and  hence  this  . 
form  of  vocational  education  is  called 
“part-time  schools.”  In  these  schools 
the  study  is  is  td  be  directly  aimed  to 
round  out,  broaden  the  horizon,  make 
more  skillful  and  more  thoughtful  the 
child  in  the  particular  industry  in 
which  it  is  at  work— to  remove,  in 
short,  the  dead  wall.  The  third  form 
of  such  schooling  is  the  evening 
school,  which  is  open  to  all  of  sixteen 
years  and  over,  already  engaged  in 
useful  employment,  and  which,  again, 
shall  deal  with  the  employment  in 
hand  or  the  development  desired. 

Indiana’s  Vocational  Law. 

The  new  Indiana  vocational  education 
law  provides  for  all  of  this.  It  will  be 
discussed,  and  the  dangers  confronting 
the  new  proposal  will  be  pointed  out  in 
later  articles.  It  is  well  to  understand, 
however,  that  the  plan  for  this  school- 
ing of  all  classes  does  not  contemplate 
releasing  the  child  from  the  school  sys- 
tem at  14  years,  nor  even  at  16.  The  new 
Indiana  vocational  education  law  bears 
testimony  to  that  fact  It  provides  that 
the  “all-day”  and  the  "part-time"  voca- 
tional education  shall  be  “restricted”  to 
persons  over  14  and  under  25  years  of 
age,  and  that  the  evening  schools  shall 
be  open  to  persons  over  17  years  cf  age- 
no  limit  being  placed  at  the  other  end. 
How  this  works  in  schools  already  estab- 
lished wlU  be  shown  in  other  articles. 


4 


VOCATIONAL  EDUCATION 


Fact  That  Most  Girls  Expect  to 
Marry  Produces  Some 
Special  Problems. 


PART  THAT  POVERTY  PLAYS 


Dtffrculty  In  Attending  Even  Voca- 
tional Schools  Shows  How  Far 
‘‘Cultural”  Schools  Miss  the  Mark. 


[By  B,  I.  l«nis.  Staff  Correspondent  of  The 
IndianapoUa  Nows] 

NEW  YORK,  April  25. — “The  problem 
of  vocational  education  for  girls,  as  those 
who  have  to  do  with  the  administration 
of  your  new  Indiana  vocational  educa- 
tion law  will  quickly  discover,  has  pe- 
culiar limitations,”  said  Miss  Florence  M. 
Marshall,  principal  of  the  Manhattan 
Trade  School  for  Girls,  as  she  led  the 
way  through  the  best  known  vocational 
public  school  for  girls  In  this  country. 

“The  very  thing  that  makes  a boy,  or 
young  man,  strive  for  or  at  least  appre- 
ciate vocational  efficiency  is  the  thing 
that  causes  girls  not  to  be  impressed 
with  the  need  of  such  great  efficiency. 
The  boy  Is  entering  industry  for  a life 
work  and  he  wants  a training  that  will 
advance  him  and  give  him  permanent 
occupation  at  good  wages;  and  he,  or  his 
parents,  counts  on  a wife  and  family  to 
support 

“The  girl  expects  to  marry— she  Is  go- 
ing Into  Industry  only  temporarily.  She 
comes  to  us  only  to  get  training  that  will 
la.nd  her  in  a Job  and  will  give  her  bet- 
ter wages  than  she  otherwise  would  get, 
pending  the  time  when  she  marries.  She 
Is  actuated  by  our  statement— which  the 
girls  know  to  be  true — that  almost  every 
^rl  that  comes  to  this  school  and  takes 
the  year’s  course  Is  placed  directly  in  a 
Job  at  a wage  of  at  least  $5  a week. 

Great  Demand  tor  Trained  Girls. 

“The  manufacturers  and  shop  people 
besiege  us  for  our  trained  girls,  and  girls 
who  show  such  special  aptitude  that  we 
can  especially  recommend  them  get  from 
16  to  a week  to  begin  on.  Girls  who 
remain  more  than  one  year  and  who  take 
positions  as  straw  machine  or  hat  oper- 
ators, can  reach  JI2,  $15  or  $18  a week  dur- 
ing the  first  season  out  of  school,  but  they 
do  not,  however,  have  a full  year  of  work 
in  the  straw  machltie  trade.  .Sj)eclal  em- 
broidery machine  operators  frequently 
reach  $8,  $10  or  $12  during  their  first  sea- 
son at  the  trade.  The  girls  know  that  this 
public  school  puts  them  Into  paying  em- 
ployment. It  is  dlfllcult  to  hold  them  a 
■ ear.  (tn  some  the  economic  stress— due 
to  the  eoriditlons  at  home- -is  great. 

"In  tlif)  time  tliat  we  do  have  tliein  in 
tti;-.  public  "cliool  heading  them  directly 
for  their  tntdc,  and  without  n,ueh  de- 
fl<-<  tlon  in  liny  kind  of  training,  we  handle 
e-.i-ry  one  individually  and  promote  her 
font,  an  'die  horHclf,  regardless  of  any 
idowe.r  aiiaociates,  shows  ttiul  oho  cun  ad- 


vance. nj.porttmlty  is  given  to  train 
Ing  on  all  machines  and  In  all  branches 
of  her  chosen  trade. 

‘‘Placement  Secretary." 

“The  school  is  running  except  during 
August,  and  pupils  are  iidinllted  on  Mon- 
day of  luich  week,  which  means  that  tlio 
mcmher.shlp  is  con.stantly  shifting.  A 
diploma  Is  given  to  girls  who  complete  the 
course  In  the  trade  selected  and  the  coiirso 
can  be  completed  by  the  avernge  girl  in 
one  year.  'I'ho.se  wlio  are  thus  graduated 
are  placed  in  good  positions.  W<*  have 
more  demands  than  we  can  suppl.v  for 
good  workers  and  for  this  work  we  main- 
tain a ‘placement  sei’retary.’  Her  work 
is  a great  part  of  the  school’s  plans.  .Sho 
not  only  keeps  in  touch  with  the  demands 
of  employers,  but  also  with  the  girls  wo 
place.  If  they  are  not  well  selected  for 
the  work,  she  sees  that  they  are  shifted, 
or  if,  for  any  reason,  the  girl  at  any 
time  is  out  of  employment  as  a graduate 
of  the  school,  she  can  avail  herself  of 
the  opportunities  of  the  placement  secre- 
tary to  replace  lier.  Thus  we  are  certain 
that  our  girls  get  a right  start,  and.  of 
course,  under  the  right  kind  of  employ- 
ers.” 

Little  Like  an  Ordinary  School. 

'riiere  is  not  much  similarity  between 
this  school  and  the  ordinary  public  school. 
The  school  building  Itself,  housing  the 
be.st  known  and  largest  vocational  school 
for  girls  In  the  country,  and  un- 
der the  management  of  a woman  who 
Is  credited  with  being  one  of  the  most 
active  forces  trying  to  solve  tlie  new 
educational  problem  as  applied  to  girls 
destined  at  least  for  a time  to  industry, 
bears  no  physical  resemblance  to  the 
typical  schoolhouse.  The  Manhattan 
Trade  school  for  girls  is  in  an  ordinary 
business  building,  differing  in  no  respect 
In  outward  appearances  from  the  other 
tall  business  buildings  making  the  solid 
north  wall  of  Twenty-third  street.  Just 
beyond  Third  tavenue.  It  is  down  In  busy 
New  York,  just  over  on  the  “east  side.” 

Inside,  especially  on  the  top  floor  given 
over  to  high  power  sewing  machines  of 
all  commercial  types  from  those  used  by 
garment  manufacturers  to  the  special  ma- 
chines used  in  straw  hat  making,  there  is 
the  hum  and  air  of  a real  factory  or 
series  of  commercial  workshops.  There 
are,  here  and  there,  study  rooms,  which 
have  some  semblance  to  a school,  and 
downstairs,  on  one  floor,  is  an  assembly 
hall,  or  chapel,  where  pupils  are  gath- 
ered dally  and  In  which  there  Is  nialn- 
talned  the  school  spirit. 

Effort  to  Train  Within  a Year. 

“We  are  trying  to  meet  the  demand 
here,”  said  Miss  Marshall,  “to  equip  the 
girl  for  Industry  in  a year  at  the  most. 
Therefore,  our  days  approach  the  length 
of  the  factory  day.  We  begin  at  9 in  the 
morning  and  the  day’s  work  ends.-at  6, 
with  one  hour  for  lunch.  We  have  only  a 
month  of  vacation,  and  get  In  1,576  hours 
a year,  compared  with  966  In  the  high 
schools.  The  girl  selects  her  trade  and 
then  we  train  her  directly  at  that  trade 
without  any  frills,  and  as  she  nears  the 
end  of  the  course  we  begin  to  require  ap- 
proximately actual  trade  speed  and  exact 
trade  requirements. 

“Thi.s  Is,  Indeed,  a factory,”  Miss  Mar- 
shall explained.  “Wo  work  on  stuff 
which  Is  coniracted  for,  but  wo  only 
make  those  things  which  have'educa- 
llonal  value.  Working  on  real  cotmner- 
clal  iirodnct,  wo  get  a great  deal  of  the 
real  factor.v  or  industrial  conditions.  We 
teach,  as  purely  vocational— actual  In- 


diistri.-il  trades,  tl)  dreacmaking,  (2)  mll- 
llnerv,  (.1)  lamp  shade  iiniklng.  14)  cloth- 
ing maciilnn  niierallon,  (5;  embroidery 
machine  operating,  )6»  elraw  machina 
operating  -liat  bulhling  <71.  sampfai 
mounting,  and  t8)  novelty  case  making, 
which  Includes  elementary  MmpTa 
mounting  ami  the  making  of  fancy 
< ase.s,  desk  seta,  m,tui)  hasKsts,  and  a 
large  variety  of  novelties  In  cretonncf, 
broeade,s  and  other  materlala.” 

Character  of  the  Trades  Taught. 

As  will  ho  shown  In  another  article, 
the  temporary  character  of  glrle’  expect- 
ed Industrial  life  has  ttius  far  resulted 
in  voeatlonsl  training  being  pretty  well 
limited  to  those  trades  that  used  to  he 
e.arrled  on  in  tho  homo  when  It  was  tlio 
factory,  and  which  will,  at  tho  same 
time,  possibly  serve  the  girl  In  her  home 
when  sho  iloes  marry  -If  slio  does,  Not- 
w'lth.standlng  expectations,  a greater  and 
greater  number  of  girls  enter  tho  wage- 
earning  world  permanently.  Marrlago 
may  even  bind  her  tho  closer  to  It  anri, 
altogether,  though  girls  fall  to  see  it, 
their  Industrial  training.  It  Is  argued, 
should  be  more  comprehensive  than  they 
really  will  accept. 

The  Manhattan  Trade  School  for  Girls, 
like  other  such  schools.  Impresses  on  tho 
investigator  the  fact  that  though  a ma- 
jority of  tho  children  drop  out  of  school 
at  fourteen  because  of  no  pressing  neces- 
sity, still  there  is.  at  least  in  every  city, 
an  element  whose  economic  distress  Is 
such  that  ev#!ry  member  of  a family  must 
early  become  a contributor  to  tho  family 
revenues.  ’The  economic  pressure  hero  Is 
especially  apparent.  These  girls  must  go 
to  work,  and  In  this  schooling  the  state 
Is  furnishing  an  education  that  they  need 
and  that  Increases  their  efficiency  for  In- 
dustry and  their  own  flnancial  return. 

Aid  to  Many  Unable  to  Afford  School. 

The  “philanthropic  side”  of  this,  or  the 
“ethical  defect”  will  later  be  touched  on. 
In  fact,  practically  all  of  the  girls  In  this 
school  are  from  the  ranks  of  the  common 
or  most  menial  workers.  This  Is  their 
way  to  something  better  In  life.  Here,  and 
In  some  other  such  schools,  a “student  aid 
fund”  Is  part  of  tho  “equipment.”  TWs 
fund  Is  contributed  by  friends  of  the 
school.  It  Is  used  to  help  worthy  girls  who 
could  not  afford  to  attend  the  school— or 
any  school— and  who  would  be  forced  Into 
sweat  shops  unless  some  means  were  pro- 
vided for  street  car  fares,  luncheons  and 
even.  In  some  cases,  clothing.  During  the 
last  year  over  seventy-flve  girls  have 
been  so  assisted. 

All  this  adds  to  the  "philanthropic  de- 
fect,” but  nothing  could  more  emphatical- 
ly demonstrate  the  total  Inadequacy  of 
the  old  line  “cultural  school”  to  meet  the 
educational  needs  of  this  element  In  ev- 
ery city.  There  Is  considerable  to  be  said 
on  the  side  of  such  education,  which 
makes  girls  dress  makers,  for  example, 
and  starts  them  In  at  living  wages,  and 
shows  that  63  per  cent,  of  those  that  are 
thus  educated  and  cared  for  are  in  their 
second  year  making  $9  or  more  a week. 

Teaching  of  Hygienic  Needs. 

In  a brief  newspaper  article  It  is  im- 
possible to  do  Justice  to  the  efforts  made 
In  so  short  a time  to  do  more  than  in- 
dustrially train  a girl.  No  girl  enters 
this  school  except  after  a searching 
I)hysical  examination.  Girls  from  the 
tenements  too  often  have  Infested  heads, 
wax  sometimes  is  hardened  in  their  ears 
nnlll  it  lias  to  be  syringed  out,  eyes  are 
bad  and  teeth  are  worse.  Often  there  is 
curvature  of  t.he  spine  or  other  sbcloua 
defect.  Tho  young  men.  and  women  study- 


VOCATIONAL  EDUCATION 


5 


ing  in  the  nearby  medical,  surgical, 
dental  and  other  colleges,  are  called  on 
to  do  plenty  of  work  to  produce  a girl 
sound  for  Industry— one  who  will  not,  for 
example,  have  to  lose  time  because  of 
toothache.  The  results  of  this  work  are 
little  short  of  marvelous. 

Girls  are  also  taught  that  a good  fac- 
tory worker  should  not  have  finger  nails 
gnawed  off  deep— or  at  all;  and  that 
pleasing  appearance,  good  manners  and 
gentleness  are  Industrial  assets,  to  say 
nothing  of  matrimonial.  Every  girl  has 
to  have  clean  head,  clean  ears,  good 
teeth,  etc.,  and  keep  up  the  established 
standards.  It  has  been  the  awakening  of 
many  girls,  and  this.  In  a sense,  is  citi- 
zen making.  Girls  are  taught  physical  ex- 
ercises which,  as  workers,  they  should 
have.  They  are  taught  how  to  stand 
on  the  restful  outer  rims  of  their  feet— a 
great  thing  to  a girl  of  weak  arches. 
Curvatures  are  corrected;  some  girls  can 
not  enter  work  which  requires  standing, 
and  trade  selection  Is  changed.  This  side 
of  the  work  is  impressive  and  especially 
so  when  the  girls  are  seen,  as  finished 
product  and  look  so  healthy  and  well- 
mannered.  They  are  advised  in  matter  of 
dress. 

Besides  Trade  Teaching. 

While  five  of  the  seven  hours  of  the 
school  days  are  applied  to  the  desired 
trade,  other  things  are  taught.  There  is 
arithmetic,  but  not  the  old  kind.  It  is 
the  business  arithmetic  of  the  chosen 
trade.  English  also  Is  of  the  "applied” 
type,  and  there  is  study  and  training  in 
design  and  testing  and  study  of  textiles 
in  matters  of  costs,  widths,  durability, 
weaves,  prints,  dyes  and  economies. 

Then  there  is  a study  of  industrial 
problems — of  the  factory  system,  divisions 
of  labor,  sweatshop  methods,  work  of 
Consumers’  League,  trade  unions,  child 
labor  committee  work,  labor  law  relat- 
ing to  and  protecting  women  and  girls, 
factory  inspection,  and  sanitary  require- 
ments In  the  factory,  and  what  they 
should  be  in  the  worker’s  home.  The 
spirit  of  nationality  and  the  common  good 
is  in  this  worl^  "rhere  are  also  physical 
training  and  gymnasium  work  and  a se- 
vere training  in  personal  cleanliness. 
There  is  also  small  Incidental  training  in 
cooking,  in  preparing  and  serving  the 
dally  luncheon. 

In  addition  to  this  all-day  school  work, 
the  Manhattan  School  for  Girls  also,  in 
night  classes,  works  with  the  girl  in  in- 
dustry who  wants  more  special  indus- 
trial training,  or  certain  home  arts. 

In  short.  New  York  is  one  among  the 
leaders  that  recognize  that  our  changing 
economic  life  has  touched  the  woman — the 
girl.  It  has  touched  the  home  which  was 
the  first,  the  great,  factory  wherein  the 
cloth  was  spun,  the  corn  was  ground  and 
made  Into  food,  and  even  the  lighting  was 
cast  in  candle  molds  and  the  soap  pre-. 
pared  out  of  the  fats  by  the  action  of 
ashes  and  water  on  them.  The  woman’s 
early  work  has  been  taken  away  from 
her.  ar^>  often  reduced  to  an  idler  in  the 
home.  ^ later  economic  pressure  has  be- 
gun to  .orce  her  out  of  the  home. 

Whether  there  Is  a direct  connection 
between  less  than  a living  wage  and  im- 
morality may  yet  remain  a question  to  be 
debated,  but  it  is  generally  recognized 
that  it  Is  not  a good  thing  for  woman- 
hood or  for  the  future  citizenship  of  any 
nation  to  have  girl  and  women  workers 
giving  their  last  ounce  of  vitality  and 
energy  in  competitive  industrial  life  for 
less  than  what  their  bodies  and  minds  de- 
mand In  proper  nourishment,  proper  liv- 
ing conditions,  proper  diversions.  It  is 
also  becoming  more  generally  recognized 
and  taught  In  these  schools  that  not  only 
does  a living  wage  for  the  workers  consti- 
tute the  first  just  claim  on  industry,  but 
that  when  unskilled  and  other  laborers 
work  for  lower  than  living  wages  they  are 
tearing  down  not  only  fair  industrial  con- 
ditions in  this  country,  but  also  the  home. 
It  is  recognized  here  that  the  competing 
inefficient  female  worker  is,  by  reason  of 
her  very  unpreparedness,  the  greatest 
menace  to  her  own  class  and  to  others. 


WAGES  HD  BY 


How  Massachusetts  Girls  Have 
Been  Benefited  by  Voca- 
tional Education. 


HOUSEHOLD  ARTS  POSTPONED 


Experience  Shows  Young  Girls  Are 
Not  Interested — Go  to  Night  School 
Later  When  “Man"  Appears. 


[By  E.  I.  Lewis,  Staff  Correspondent  of  The 
Indianapolis  News] 

BOSTON,  April  26.— A description  of  the 
Boston  Public  Trade  School  for  Girls 
would,  largely,  be  a repetition  of  the  ar- 
ticle telling  of  the  work,  methods  and 
aims  of  the  Manhattan  Trade  School  for 
Girls. 

Here,  however,  compared  with  New 
York,  the  economic  conditions  which 
throw  girls  into  industry  more  nearly  ap- 
proximate that  of  lAdlana  cities  that 
may,  under  the  new  vocational  education 
laws,  be  confronted  with  the  problem  of 
giving  to  girls  the  vocational  education 
that  they  need. 

At  the  Manhattan  Trade  School  for 
Girls  the  economic  need  of  the  girls — or 
rather  the  economic  pressure  which  is 
forcing  them  out  of  homes  as  soon  as  the 
law  will  let  them  go  to  work— Is  strong. 
Here,  and  in  all  the  Massachusetts  cities, 
as  in  Indiana,  the  economic  pressure  is 
not  so  insistent.  But  it  is  here,  and  in 
Indiana  cities,  nevertheless. 

Meeting  of  Economic  Needs. 

The  trade  school  and  other  vocational 
school  work  for  girls  in  Massachusetts 
Impressively  brings  out  the  fact  that 
there  is  a large,  and  increasingly  large, 
number  of  girls  to  whom  the  ordinary 
schools  after,  say,  the  fifth  or  sixth 
grades,  do  not  give  the  practical  wage  re- 
turning education  that  they  or  their  home 
conditions  require. 

At  fourteen  they  are  free  to  go,  to  a 
limited  extent,  into  industry.  If  train- 
ing is  not  provided  they  enter  industry 
here  at  a wage  of  about  three  dollars  and 
forty-three  cents  a week  and,  too  often, 
get  into  a "dead  end”  or  "blind  alley” 
job— that  is,  into  a work  that  offers  no 
future.  The  Boston  Trade  School  for 
Girls  which,  like  the  Manhattan  Trade 
School  for  Girls,  alms  in  a one-year 
course,  free  of  frills,  to  put  the  girl  di- 
rectly at  the  trade  she  has  chosen,  showed 
an  average  of  $6.16  a week  as  the  begin- 
ning wage  of  its  girls  in  1910-11.  It  is 
probably  higher  than  that  at  this  time. 

Value  of  School-Trained  Girls. 

The  commercial  producers  who  employ 
girls  have  learned  that  the  state  Is  giv- 
ing an  effective  apprenticeship  which  all 
specialized  Industry  Itself  has  largely 
discontinued,  and  the  result  is  that  there 
is  not  only  a great  demand  for  girls 
trained  in  the  public  schools,  but  the 
wages  offered  to  them  to  begin  on  have 
gone  up  in  the  last  two  or  three  years 


from  about  $5  a week  to  $6,  and  some- 
times girls  are  placed  at  higher  beginning 
wages  than  this.  The  testimony  from  the 
trades  is  that  these  girls— who,  mark  it 
well,  are  trained  by  teachers  who  them- 
selves were  taken  from  the  shops  or  fac- 
tories—are  ready  to  go  to  the  machines 
with  valuable  goods  at  once.  Their  oppor- 
tunity and  training  in  the  schools  to  work 
on  a variety  of  kinds  of  commercial  ma- 
chines, or  do  a wider  range  of  hand 
work  in  their  trades,  makes  them  capa- 
ble of  quick  advancement  in  pay.  They 
also.  In  being  able  to  operate  many  kinds 
of  machines  or  do  various  phases  of  the 
work  of  their  ti’ade  are  able  to  shift 
from  one  kind  of  work  to  another  as  dull 
seasons  affect  certain  work.  Untrained 
girls,  only  skilled  in  using  one  machine, 
are  laid  off  when  that  work  is  “short.” 

But,  as  in  the  case  of  the  Manhattan 
Trade  School  for  Girls,  the  better  intro- 
duction into  wage  earning  and  wider 
adaptability  is  only  part  of  the  advantage. 
The  school  places  the  girl  under  moral 
surroundings,  as  well  as  making  possible 
a living  wage.  Here,  also,  there  is  the  ef- 
fective "placement  secretary,”  who  not 
only  puts  the  girl  in  a place  but  keeps  a 
record  of  and  guides  her,  and  maintains 
a connection  with  trade  in  general  where- 
by any  graduate  has  a constantly  opened 
avenue  to  occupation. 

Regeneration  of  Trade. 

There  is  something,  also,  in  the  argu- 
ment, that  some  such  agency  as  this, 
having  only  In  mind  the  public  welfare, 
will  work  a certain  regeneration  in  trade. 
If  manufacturers  find  that  it  pays  them 
to  pay  a trained  girl  $6.16  a week  to  start 
on,  there  may  be  a lessening  of  the  num- 
ber that  pay  less  than  a living  wage. 
Thus,  it  will  be  seen  that  those  who  de- 
sire to  step  beyond  the  mere  realm  to 
technical  education  to  its  relation  to  per- 
sonal and  national  morality  have  much 
field  for  hope. 

Massachusetts,  for  example,  is  the  lead- 
er in  the  minimum  wage  for  women 
movement.  It  has  translated  the  demand 
for  a living  v/age  into  a law  that  is  now 
about  to  go  into  effect.  But  if  industry 
is  required  by  the  state  to  pay  a minimum 
wage  to  women,  the  question  arises  as 
to  the  right  of  industry  to  demand  an 
efficient  worker.  At  all  events,  competi- 
tive conditions  are  going  to  force  that, 
and  the  girl  who  is  not  trained,  but  who 
is  forced  by  economic  conditions  Into 
the  working  world,  will  have  a new  prob- 
lem on  her  hands. 

Effect  of  Marriage  Expectation. 

It  is  Impossible  in  these  girls’  trade 
schools  to  get  away  from  the  sex  point  of 
view.  In  the  article  on  the  Manhattan 
Trade  School  for  Girls  recognition  was 
given  to  causes  that  result  In  limiting  all 
girls’  trade  schools  in  their  work  to 
preparation  for  a restricted  number  of 
industries  to  be  entered  on  "until  the 
girl  marries.”  It  has  been  mathematically 
calculated  that  "a  girl’s  industrial  life  is 
seven  years.”  Because  of  the  presump- 
tion that  the  average  girl  is  going  to 
marry.  It  is  thought  advisable  to  teach 
her  those  industries  which  may  be  of 
value  to  her  in  her  later  homemaking 
life.  Therefore,  she  is  trained  for  com- 
mercial dressmaking,  millinery  and  kin- 
dred trades,  and  for  high  power  machine 
work  in  clothing  and  hat  and  such  lines 
of  manufacture.  In  as  much  as  the  girl 
thinks  she  is  going  to  stay  In  Industry 
only  temporarily,  tliose  trying  to  solve 
the  vocational  education  problem  have 
thus  far  not  seen  their  way  clear  to  give 
her  as  thorough  a training  as  is  given 
boys  who  go  to  work  for  life. 

But  the  consideration  of  sex  psychology 
here  in  thinking  Boston  is  leading  further. 
Girls  differ  from  boys,  it  is  asserted,  in 
as  much  as  they  work  only  from  two 
motives.  The  first  is  love;  the  second  is 
absolute  necessity.  Often  the  two 
motives  are  merged  into  one.  The  Impell- 
ing motive  sometimes  is  love  or  duty  to 


6 


VOCATIONAL  EDUCATION 


an  overworkeil  niother,  ofloii  to  llttlo 
brothers  and  sisters,  but  always  It  Is  the 
beed  to  do  HOnie.thlng  for  somebody.  J’eW 
if  any  girls  enfer  a trade  school  oN'ci'pt 
becau.so  of  economic  Blr<'sH  oti  the;  home. 
l'''urthermore,  most  of  them  do  not  like  to 
be  classed  as  factory  girls  and  thi-.\  will 
lake  enough  of  the  commercial  dressmak- 
ing work  sometimes  to  obscure  the  real 
fact  that  they  are  there  for  the  jiurijos.i 
of  entering  a clothing  factory  as  a high 
power  machine  operative. 

Phanges  as  to  Household  Arts. 

All  these  factors  enter  Into  the  solution 
of  the  problem.  Here,  In  Massachusetts, 
where  vocational  education  wa.s  Ilrst 
taken  ud  by  the  ^American  public  school, 
there  is  also  a tendency  now  to  eliminate 
Instruction  In  household  arts  from  the 
vocational  schools  for  girls.  It  is  an- 
other case  of  sex  psychology.  The  theory 
Is  being  seriously  set  up  that  at  about 
fourteen— the  beginning  of  adolescence- 
girls,  as  a rule,  lose  their  Interest  In  be- 
comlne  a housekeeper,  and  it  is  not  until 
"the  man”  appears  on  the  scene  that 
there  again  appears,  often  magically,  the 
natural  bent  of  most  young  women.  The 
tendency  now  la  to  cut  domestic  training 
out  of  vocational  education  and  to  give 
the  girl  the  wage  earning  training  she 
wants,  but  to  provide  night  schools  to 
which,  It  is  dlscovei'ed,  she  will  go  when 
"the”  man  does  appear  on  the  horizon. 
Therefore,  the  tendency  is  more  and 
more  toward  short  time,  highly  centered 
direct  vocational  training  of  girls  of 
fourteen  or  over  who  are  supposed  al- 
ready to  have  acquired  as  much  of  the 
cultural  education  as  they  can  really  af- 
ford. During  the  vocational  training, 
however,  a certain  amount  of  academic 
training  directly  applied  to  “her”  pros- 
pective Industry  Is  taught  and,  as  In 
the  Manhattan  Trade  School  for  Girls, 
there  is  also  ^ven  schooling  in  industrial 
conditions  and  laws.  In  personal  conduct, 
morality  and  cleanliness;  and  physical 
corrections  and  development  are  attend- 
ed to. 

Many  other  phases  of  this  problem  that 
Indiana  is  taking  up  are  worth  thought. 
There  Is  developing  a group  of  leaders 
who  look  on  this  trade  education  of  girls 
as  being  “philanthropic,”  in  the  sense 
that  It  deals  with  the  Individual  in  pro- 
viding skill  for  temporary  use.  They 
stand  on  the  ground  that  vocational  edu- 
cation by  general  taxation  is  Justified 
only  when  it  creates  a greater  efficiency 
In  Industry  which  amounts  to  a national 
asset,  such  as  superior  training  has  pro- 
duced for  Germany.  They  p’olnt  out  that 
In  such  girls’  vocational  schools  the 
Individual  rather  than  the  Industry  is 
benefited  per  se.  Of  course,  a long  argu- 
ment can  be  made  for  and  against  this 
stand.  It  win  come  up  In  Indiana. 

Costly  Buildings  Not  Needed. 

There  is  one  valuable  lesson  that  the 
experience  of  the  Boston  and  Manhattan 
Trade  School  for  Girls  teaches  emphati- 
cally. That  Is,  that  school  buildings  of 
the  expensive  type  are  not  necessary.  The 
Manhattan  Trade  School  for  Girls  is  In  a 
business  building.  The  Bo.ston  Trade 
School  for  Girls  Is  in  old,  but  good,  con- 
nected residential  buildings.  In  both  In- 
stances the  bulldlng.s  are  rented,  the  capi- 
tal Investment  Is  kept  low  and  the  rental 
In  not  high.  These  buildings  are  better  in 
Borne  ir-spectfl  than  modern  school  build- 
ings. The  school;;  run  eleven  months  In 
the.  year,  and  a.  groat  deal  of  the  work 
hero  h;  done  in  the  open  air  under  tents 
or  awnings  In  courts,  or  on  extended 
pialform  jiorclies,  Ireliliid  the  bulhtinKS. 
’^>joli  buildings  do  not  have  to  bo  in  the 
high  relit  dlslrlcte. 


Ah  for  ttn>  erth.-lcney  of  the  Uolon 
Hchool.  it  cun  not  I --  donlite.i  it  , ' v 

the  girl  a piilillc  schooling  1iist  It  in 
mediately  Inin;  luted  into  wui-  e:  n 

glvi  .s  tier  whut  her  eeoi.oinii  ei.ni!,li"i 
Held-  and  what  llii'  ''eioini'e'  rr  ii.iol  do.  , 
tiei  give  her.  Ilel'i',  as  III  C V '.tic 

Hchool  l.s  ii|ien  at  Ill'll;  for  .dHcial  li.nn 
lug  on  work  or  inaelilne  that  ilie  kIi  ! 
Iieed.s  for  ailviineeinent , uini  tie  l:i  fi  ee 
to  collie  n;'  cun  a.II  other  women  It  i; 
lir.iio.s.HlIde,  and  not  neees.Ma r.\ . to  iif^.  rllic 
other  Hcliool.e  for  'tlrh  in  l.ovvell.  wo.ih- 
umploii,  Newton,  New  Hi'ilfoi  d and  o'.  i <<r 
poIntH.  Aplillcii  tloli  of  t licHe  g'llieral  |>l  In- 
clplf  s Ik  locally  determined. 

Ma.s.Haeliii.i'ett.s  maintains  a large  niim 
her  of  night  .school;;  for  girl.”  'I'hey  are 
of  various  tyticH  school;,  to  hIiIcIi  .girl; 
In  indn.stry  may  come  for  addiUonul  citi- 
e'lency.  In  which  girls  In  Indiislry  rna.r 
get  a training  for  household  diilie."  wh'-n, 
poH.slhly,  ''the”  man  appcai-H,  and  In 
which  women  of  Jill  ages  may  come  for 
training  of  varloiis  kinds.  Alxnit  clglit 
thousand  jieople  are  in  tlie  piilillc  voea- 
tlonal  day  and  night  si’hools,  and  a very 
large,  number  of  tliem  are  women. 

Thus  far  Massachusett.s  dcelaris  lt;'elf 
only  to  be  e.'cperlmentlng  with  the  great 
problem  of  common  schooling  for  the 
masses,  ,and  trying  to  evolve  a .system 
which  can  be  made  pretty  general.  It  Is 
well  to  note  that  the  products  of  the 
Boston  schools  are  sold  and  that,  though 
the  girls  are  not  exploited,  this  by- 
product of  education  aids  materially  in 
meeting  expenses  as  -well  as  in  setting 
a commercial  standard  of  workmanship. 
One  statement  Indicates  that  the  piilillc 
cost  of  the  Boston  school  Is  only  about 
$10  a pupil. 


WHY  CHILDREN  WORK. 


Too  many  of  the  old  line  of  educators 
who  are  In  control  of  the  educational 
plant  of  the  country  have  not  taken  rec- 
ognition of  the  conditions  which  have 
changed  our  national  life  and  are  forcing 
the  child  into  industry.  Helen  M.  Todd, 
In  her  article  on  “Why  Children  Work,” 
in'  McClure's  Magazine,  of  the  April  (1913) 
Issue,  lifts  the  veil  a little  on  the  changed 
condition  and  educational  needs  of  the 
child  In  Industry— and  the  mass  of  them 
must  go  into  industry.  She  says: 

Ask  any  twenty  children  in  a factory 
the  question:  “Why  are  j'ou  w'orking?” 

Over  and  over  again,  in  answer  to  the 
question,  “What  does  your,  father  do?” 
the  reply  Is,  “He’s  sick”;  and  the  same 
story  unfolds  in  everj’  factory  from  most 
of  the  children  you  question;  “He’s  got 
the  brass  chills”;  “He’s  got  consump- 
tion”; ”He’s  got  blood  poisoning”;  “He’s 
paralyzed”:  “He  can’t  use  his  hands”; 
“He  works  in  a foundry,  and  the  cupola 
burst,  and  he  got  burned”:  “A  rail  fell 
on  his  foot,  and  it’s  smashed”:  “He’s 
dead— he  got  killed.”  He  worked  in  the 
steel  mills,  or  the  stockyards,  or  on  the 
railroad,  and  the  engine  ran  over  him; 
he  was  burned  ■with  molten  metal,  or 
crushed  by  falling  beams,  or  maimed  by 
an  explosion. 

These  stories,  told  in  the  soft  voices  of 
little  children,  are  endless.  To  the  ques- 
tion, “Did  your  mother  get  any  money 
from  the  company?”  the  answer  is  almost 
Invariably,  “No,”  or  a shake  of  the  small 
head,  the  child  not  caring  to  take  enough 
strengtli  from  Its  work  even  to  speak; 
and  when  yon  ask,  “How  many  children 
are  there  besides  you?”  the  numbers  usu- 
ally range  from  five  to  seven.  And  when 
you  sa.v,  “How  many  are  there  of  yon 
wlio  are  -working?”  the  answer  i.s  sonie- 
t lines  one.  sometimes  two,  .seldom  more; 
anil  often,  without  looking  uii.  the  child 
an.swers:  "My  mother  she  works,  and 
me.”  "And  how  much  does  your  mother 
make?”  “She  niake.s  18  cents  an  hour, 
scrubbing  downtown.”  "And  liow  much 
do  you  make?''  “I  make  I!  cents  a tlion- 
sand,  pusting  on  cigar  band.s.”  "And  can 
yon  and  your  mother  earn  enongli  money 
to  take  care  of  the  family?”  “Ves, 
ma’am,”  she  answers;  "we  gotta." 


ONE  WEEK  IN  SHOP 
THE NEKI  IN  SCHOOL 


Vocational  Training  of  Bc^s  at 
Beverly  Illustrates  One 
Massachusetts  Method. 


USE  OF  MECHANIC  TEACHERS 


Provision  of  Skilled  Workmen  as  In- 
structors Is  Point  of  Vital  Im- 
portance for  Success. 


I Uy  K.  I.  Lewifi,  Staff  (.'orreHpondeiit  «f  Tlia 
IndiaiiuiiiillH  Ni'WhI 

BEVEBBY.  Maas.,  April  J.1.  The  voca- 
tional Hcliools  of  Ma:  ; :"  hu  cl  1 :.  pi  i sent 
the  striking  difference  In  tli"  probli-m  of 
giving  boys  and  girh;  in-Pi  drlul  c'luca- 
tiun.  This  dlftereni  i-  is  t . ideally  lllii.i- 
trated  in  the  Be'-'U  ly  vo>  ational  hi  IiooI. 

As  types,  the  Boston  and  .Sew  York 
trade  schools  for  glrb.  illustrate  the  fact 
that  girls  Intend  to  marry;  that  tliey  are 
forced  by  ■ conomlc  pre.ssurc  Into  indus- 
try; and  tliat  their  industrial  life  being, 
because  of  matrimony,  only  .“'ven  years., 
the  field  of  training  is  limited  and  tlie 
period  of  public  schooling  for  it  also  is 
limited  to  approximately  one  year. 

As  a type,  the  Beverly  school  forcibly 
presents  the  fact  that  boys  deliberately, 
rather  than  by  economic  pressure,  enter 
industry;  that  they  enter  It  for  life  and 
that,  perhaps  unconsciously,  expecting  re- 
sponsibilities of  married  life,  they  are 
moved  to  aim  for  efficiency  in  training 
that  will  insure  them  steady  work  at 
good  wages  and  good  chance  of  promo- 
tion. Always,  of  course,  speaking  in  gen- 
eral terms,  they  can  be  made  to  see  that 
denial  of  immediate,  alluring “boy”  wages 
■will  pay  great  deferred  dividends. 

No  Suggestion  of  Philanthropy. 

Because  of  this  wholly  different  condi- 
tion it  is  possible  to  give  boys  vocational 
education  that  really  results  in  a higher 
efficiency  and  standards  of  Industry,  and 
therefore  creates  a national  or  state  or 
local  asset.  This  is  free  of  all  sugges- 
tion of  philanthropy.  Broadly  speaking, 
taxation  for  vocational  or  any  other  kmu 
of  education  Is  only  justified,  many  hold, 
when  it  produces  an  asset  of  society  m 
Increasing  the  efficiency  of  and  for  so- 
ciety. The  Beverly  school,  again  used 
only  as  an  Illustrating  type,  presents  the 
essential  difference  between  philanthropy 
and  the  creaAlon  of  national  or  local 
efficiency.  ' , , » 

Except  periodically  during  the  last  four 
years,  when  it  has  been  the  “summer 
capital”  of  the  nation,  Beverly  is  always 
overshadowed  by  one  commanding  in- 
dustry, as,  for  example,  Gary  is  by  the 
United  States  steel  plant.  It  is  the 
yilant  of  the  United  Shoe  Machinery 
Company — "the  shoe  machinery  trust. 
While  this  concern  by  its  monopolization 
of  shoe  machinery  manufacture,  and  its 
control,  through  leasing  systems,  of  the 
shoe  indn.stry,  may  run  afoul  of  the  gov- 
ernment anti-trust  policy,  it  is  certainly  a 
great  thing  for  Beverly.  It  employs  more 
than  four  thousand  men  and  its  product 
requires  highly  skilled  workmen.  In  fact, 
if  a boy  does  not  get  into  this  plant  he, 


VOCATIONAL  EDUCATION 


7 


Industrially  speaking-,  pretty  nearly  has 
to  get  out  of  his  home  to-wn. 

Adaptation  to  Local  Demand. 

n’he  vocational  school  here,  because  of 
these  conditions,  is  peculiar,  but  it  illus*- 
trates  what  might  be  done,  for  example 
In  Gary— or  in  Indianapolis,  which  spe- 
cializes in  automobiles.  Half  of  the 
School— the  mechanical  side  of  it— is  in 
the  United  Shoe  Machinery’s  plant.  Its 
eriuipment  is  furnished  by  “the  Shoe’’ 
and  the  company  pays  about  half  the  ex- 
pense, the  other  half  being  divided  be- 
tween local  taxation  and  state  aid.  Of 
course,  all  the  boys  who  go  through  this 
School  are  aimed  directly  for  work  in 
the  Shoe’s”  plant,  and  the  taxpayer  is 
putting  up  half  the  cost  of  educating  the 
boy  for  the  company’s  service — covering 
half  the  cost  of  apprenticeship. 

These  questions  are  going  to  come  up 
in  Indiana  and  are  of  greater  and  deeper 
interest  to  both  the  manufacturer  and  the 
taxpayer  than  really  the  school’s  organi- 
zation for  work.  As  to  the  latter,  the 
boys  who  enter  the  Beverly  vocational 
school  are  going  into  industry  for  life 
and  are  aiming  for  efficiency.  The  voca- 
tional school  is  under  the  direction  of 
business  men  representing  the  employer 
and  employe  classes.  Expert  workmen 
are  teachers.  The  course  theoretically 
begins  at  the  fourteenth  year  and  it  cuts 
out  of  the  boys’  lives  the  “cultural”  high 
school  or  such  upper  grades  in  the 
grammer  school  as  have  not  been 
reached.  The  vocational  school  course 
itself  is  two  and  a half  years,  but  it 
really  follows  the  boy  into  the  factory 
when  he  is  a full-paid  workman,  and  it 
may  hold  him  under  Its  direction  three 
or  four  years  before  a graduation  certi- 
ficate is  won.  though  in  the  last  year  or 
two  years  he  may  be  working  at  full 
wages. 

One  Week  in  School,  One  in  Factory. 

The  school  is  practically  in  session  con- 
tinuously, though  this  week  one  half  the 
pupils  are  at  work  in  the  factory  school 
and  next  week  the  other  half  will  be 
there.  The  “Shoe”  has  set  aside  one  big 
section  of  its  mammoth  and  beautiful 
plant  for  the  sohooling.  It  has  stocked 
it  with  all  the  machines  needed  and, 
furthermore,  the  instructor  is  permitted 
to  go  through  the  plant  and  pick  out 
such  work  as  he  finds  of  educational 
value.  In  commercial  lots,  the  individ- 
ual student  is  put  to  work  on  It  as  a 
study— working,  shaping  and  fashioning, 
it  to  blue  prints.  Copies  of  which  he  must 
make. 

The  company,  of  course,  requires  that 
its  material  be  worked  up  into  parts 
without  flaws  and  then  it  buys  that 
which  does  pass  thos£  requirements.  The 
defective  materials  have  been  reduced  to 
1 per  cent.,  by  efficiency.  The  pupil  gets 
half  this  pay  and  the  company  places 
the  other  half  into  a fund  used  to  pay 
half  the  cost  of  certairi  teachers  or  in- 
structors. The  boys  in  the  shop  one  week 
are  applying  directly  those  things  that, 
in  the  vocational  school  class  and  draft- 
ing rooms  .and  laboratories  they  were 
studying  the  week  before,  and  they  also 
take  the  problems  they  encountered  one 
week  in  the  shop  back  into  the  vocational 
schoolhouse  for  study  the  next  week. 

Mechanic  Instructor’s  Work. 

One  “shop”  instructor  is  constantly  in 
charge  of  the  factory  school  or  workshop, 
and  there  is  at  the  vocational  schoolhouse 
one  director  and  an  instructor  in  applied  ■ 
science.  But  there  is  always  with  his 
class,  this  week  in  the  factory  and  next 
week  in  the  school,  the  “mechanic  in- 
structor,” and  he  connects  the  work. 

Of  course,  for  this  work  the  Instructor 
has  to  come  from  the  industry  Itself— be 
a finely  trained  mechanic  or  workman  in 
whom  has  been  developed  the  pedagogical 
Bide  to  a certain  extent.  This  is  a point 


that  a special  article  is  later  to  cover, 
but  here  it  is  well  to  point  to  Its  local 
ai)pllcation.  Klr.st.  this  company  would 
not  place  the  thoiisaml.s  of  dollars’  worth 
of  machines  at  the  di.S|)Osal  or  use  of  any 
s(‘hool  teacher.  Secondly,  the  company 
would  not  SFJend  thousands  of  dollars  for 
this  schooling  if  it  did  not  produce  com- 
mercial product  and  give  e.xpert  knowl- 
edge that  no  old-line  school  teacher  has. 
or  can  obtain.  Third,  there  is  that  in  a 
boy’s  nature  that  not  only  wants  the 
practical  tiling,  but  that  demands  the 
practical  man  and  respects  him  though 
“academically”  he  may  have  rough 
edges.  Fourth,  in  this  work  it  is  impog- 
sible  to  make  an  old-line  pedagogue  into 
an  industrial  instructor  of  this  kind;  it 
is  the  man  v.'ho  has  the  years  of  skilled 
training  and  advancement  who  can  be- 
come the  instructor. 

Point  of  Vital  Importance. 

The  importance  of  thi.s  can  not  be  over- 
emphasized. It  is  the  rock  on  which  vo- 
cational education  founders  when  the 
“cultural”  school  people  insist  on  a re- 
versal of  the  rule.  It  is  the  thing  which, 
either  in  boy.s’  or  giUs’  vocational  schools, 
determines  whether’  vocational  education 
is  to  be  vocational  education  or  only  an- 
other layer  of  manual  training  rejected 
by  a large  majority  of  boys  at  fourteen 
because  it  “teaches  nobody  anything  to 
work  with.” 

Let  the  test  be  local  here.  What  the 
boys  and  the  company  both  want  is  the 
same  thing— high  wage  yielding  work. 
Superintendent  Robinson,  of  the  machine 
department,  employing  seven  hundred  ma- 
chinists for  which  most  of  the  boys  aim, 
said:  “These  boys  who  come  to  me  after 
two  to  two  and  a half  years  of  this 
schooling;  to  go  to  work  on  full  wages, 
are  better  workmen  than  most  men  who 
have  been  in  the  shops  all  their  lives. 
They  soon  are  making  better  wages. 
Why?  Because  modern  industry  is  neces- 
sarily reduced  to  specialization.  A man 
goes  on  one  piece  of  machinery  and  be- 
comes very  expert  on  it,  but  he  may  be 
utterly  helpless  on  the  next  machine  to 
him.  Remember  this:  There  are  many 
‘machinists’  now,  but  few  ‘mechanics.’ 
There  is  the  difference. 

“These  boys  are  trained  to  study  and 
think  and  to  work  on  all  the  fundamental 
machines.  They  get  the  science  and  the- 
ory and  a rounding  out  of  trade  ‘acad- 
emic’ training,  and  the  art  of  study;  and 
they  know  something,  as  mechanics,  of 
draftsmanship  as  well  as  how  to  read  all 
kinds  of  blue  prints,  and  have  a theory 
of  personal  conduct,  discipline,  responsi- 
bility and  citizenship.  They  have  general 
educational  enlightenment. 

Advantage  of  Adaptability. 

“The  results  are  manifold.  Suppose  we 
are  rushed  today  or  this  season  on  a cer- 
tain kind  o^  lathe  work.  Here  is  a highly 
skilled  man  on  a milling  machine  who 
doesn’t  know  anything  about  the  lathe 
work,  but  here  is  a man  from  the  school 
who  knows  one  as  well  as  the  other.  To 
us  this  means  production;  to  the  worker 
steady  wages  and  no  layoff.  Again,  here 
is  a man  who  knows  the  problems  of  the 
draftsman  and  can  see  beyond  that  blue 
print;  a man  who  has  a new,  real  appre- 
ciation of  small  parts  because  he  knows 
how  to  make  and  apply  them,  and  of 
measurements  such  as  a ten-thousandth 
of  an  inch  which  we  employ  in  machinery 
making;  and  he  realizes  why,  they  have 
to  be  so  fine  and  that  a thousandth  of 
an  inch  departure  in  a single  tiny  part 
means  a defective  great  machine,  inas- 
much as  it  will  not  work  with  such  fine 
precision  or  perfection.  The  school  aims 
only  to  produce  good  machinists,  but 
they  have  gained  the  things  that  push 
men  ahead  and  even  cause  them  to  de- 
velop into  the  draftsman  or  inventive  and 
improvement  end  of  the  business. 

“What,”  asked  Superintendent  Robin- 
son. “does  all  this  mean?  To  the  man, 


better  wages.  To  us,  an  Immense  saving 
and  at  the  same  time  greater  efficiency 
and  lower  cost  of  production.  We  lAlltt 
have  to  take  men  from  the  outside  anfl 
make  them  ‘machinists.’  We  lose  a great 
deal  of  time  and  material  in  schooling; 
then  they  may  quit  and  we  lose  it  all. 
Generally,  however,  though  the  man  may 
become  skilled,  he  does  not  tend  to  raise 
productive  efficiency  in  the  broader  sense 
of  more  perfect  machines.  All  this  is  loss 
—loss  in  prestige;  in  local,  national  or  in- 
ternational competition;  in  money;  in  pro- 
duction. 'i'he  last  means  higher  prices  to 
consumers.”  Here  he  was  getting  at  the 
creation  of  a national  or  local  a.sset  such 
as  Germany  has  created.  Philanthropy 
had  entirely  dl.sappeared. 

Results  in  Wages  to  the  Boys. 

Analyzed  on  a “profit  and  loss”  basis 
the  showing  is  interesting.  The  boys 
come  from  the  common  schools.  Reports 
show  that  they  are  sons  of  clerks,  shop- 
keepers, shoemakers,  tailors,  chauffeurs, 
laborers,  machinists  and  other  workmen. 
A boy’s  earning  capacity  in  Beverly  Is 
liberally,  estimated  at  $6  a week,  which 
capitalized  on  a 5 per  cent,  a year  basis 
represents  a working  capital  value  of 
$6,000  a year.  The  wage  earning  capacity 
of  boys,  after  two  and  a half  or  three 
years  of  this  public  schooling,  is  $15  to  $18 
a week.  Capitalized  on  a 5 per  cent, 
basis,  this  shows  the  marvelous  increase 
from  $6,000  to  $15,000  to  $18,000  a year  work- 
ing capital. 

But  the  boy  here  is  only  on  the  thresh- 
old. Another  set  of  figures  is  interest- 
ing. Professor  James  M.  Dodge,  presi- 
dent of  the  American  Society  of  Mechan- 
ical Engineers,  in  his  notable  and  elab- 
orate formula,  finds  that  the  average  un- 
trained worker  in  this  country  reaches 
his  maximum  of  earning  at  twenty-three 
years  of  age,  the  average  then  being  $15 
a week.  The  future  of  the  untrained  be- 
yond this  becomes  precarious.  They  are 
in  “blind  alleys”  and  “no-thoroughfare” 
work.  Only  6 per  cent,  rise  above  the 
level,  35  per  cent,  remain  in  employ,  20 
per  cent,  leave  the  work  of  their  own 
accord,  and  40  per  cent,  are  dismissed. 
Here  at  seventeen  and  a half  years  or 
eighteen,  the  vocationally  educated  pupil 
of  the  Beverly  school  has  a capitalized 
value  of  $15,000  to  $18,000  at  the  beginning 
of  a career  which  may  contribute  greatly 
to  the  advance  of  national  commerce, 
while  at  his  maximum  the  untrained 
worker  has  only  a capitalization  value  of 
$1.5,000  and  he  holds  back  instead  of  ad- 
vancing Industry.  This  is  the  German 
problem  here  at  home. 

Cost  of  the  Schooling. 

The  averaf*'  cost  of  this  vocational 
public  schooling  is  about  one  hundred 
dollars  a pupil  a year.  The  boy  actual- 
ly earns  and  gets  in  productive  work  in 
his  part-time  shop  work  about  four  dol- 
lars a week,  which  not  only  does  not 
take  anything  out  of  industry,  but  pays 
for  his  schooling  and  puts  $200  in  circula- 
tion locally  for  tbe  half  of  the  $100  that 
the  local  community  puts  up— the  state 
paying  the  other  half  of  the  amount  of 
maintenance  falling  to  public  expense. 

It  is  impossible  to  go  into  each  one  of 
these  voactional  schools  in  which  local 
conditions  vary  the  type  to  an  extent.  At 
Quincy,  for  example,  the  pupils  are  in 
four  factories  under  slightly,  different 
conditions;  at  Worcester  the  shopworK 
is  done  in  the  school  which  has  its  own 
equipment  and  produces  a commercial 
product.  At  Fitchburg  the  boys  work  as 
indentured  apprentices  In  many  plants 
ever,y  other  week.  All  of  these  “week 
about”  schools,  differing  widely  perhaps 
as  to  detail,  apply  the  general  princi- 
ples set  out  in  the  description  of  the  Bev- 
erly undertaking.  All  that  are  success- 
ful are  on  an  actual  work  basis,  under 
direction  of  men  who  are  workers,  not 
theorists,  and  taught  by  skilled  workers, 
not  school  teachers. 


s 


VOCATIONAL  EDUCATION 


They  Were  Largely  Equipped 
by  Work  of  Pupils 
Themselves. 


OLD  FACTORY 

WAS 

USED 

As  Boys  Learned 

Various 

Trades 

.They  Converted  It  Into  a Thorough-  i 
going  Shop  at  Little  Expense. 


[By  E.  I.  Lewis,  Staff  Correspondent  of  The 
IndlaJoapoUs  News] 

NEW  BEDFORD,  Mass.,  April  28.— 
The  New  Bedford  Industrial  school  pre- 
sents another  phase  of  this  state’s  ex- 
perimentation in  education  of  people  for 
the  work  of  life.  There  Is  in  connection 
with  this  public  school  a department  for 
the  education  of  ^irls  in  millinery,  dress 
making  and  cooking  more  on  a home 
vocation  than  an  indfustrlal  basis.  Essen- 
tially, however,  the  New  Bedford  Indus- 
trial school  is  a vocational  school  for 
boys.  It  takes  the  boy  at  fourteen  years, 
who  is  not  getting  what  he  wants  or  likes 
in  the  ordinary  school.  He  goes  to  this 
school  the  same  as  he  would  to  the 
other  public  school,  but  the  “cultural” 
line  of  education  is  cut  down  to  below 
60  per  cent,  and  is  wholly  applied  to  his 
chosen  Industry.  The  real  bent  of  the 
work  is  to  train  the  boy  to  become  (1)  a 
machinist,  (2)  a woodworker,  (3)  a steam 
engineer,  or  (4)  an  electrician.  When  he 
gets  through  this  school  he  Is  not  only 
theoretically  prepared  to  take  up  such 
work  by  entering  a shop  as  an  appren- 
tice, but  is.  Instead,  supposed  to  be  prac- 
tically in  possession  of  the  trade  and 
ready  to  go  into  a real  Job  as  a full- 
fledged  workman,  or  very  nearly  that. 

School  Has  Its  Own  Shops. 

This  kind  of  vocational  school  for  boys 
differers  from  the  other  group,  of  which 
Beverly  was  described  as  a type,  inas- 
much as  here  the  boy  Is  continuously  in 
the  school  plant,  whereas  in  the  Beverly 
type  of  schools  he  is  in  an  actual  manu- 
facturing or  industrial  plant  one  week  or 
one  day  and  in  the  vocational  school 
building  itself  the  alternating  week  or 
day  on  closely  conected  up  school  work. 
The’  New  Bedford  type  of  vocational 
school,  however,  has  Its  own  shops.  At 
least  half  the  time  and  often  more  than 
that.  Is  spent  In  the  school's  shops  or 
“factories”  In  overalls,  working  on  real 
coinnierolal  work. 

J-'or  example,  New  Bedford  has  built  a 
very  co.stly  hlati  scliool  building.  The 
steam  englneeilng  students  have  been  at 
w<nk  on  the  Installation  of  the  heating 
and  power  plant,  and  the  ele(;trlcal  Stu- 
dents have  been  Installing  lighting  and 
ether  erpilpmeiit.  Tin-  cabinet  maker  stu- 
deritc  and  the  c-arpenler  students  liave 
l)ee;i  making  various  e.oulpment  for  .school 
buildings,  while  machinist  students  also 
iiuve  moile  machines  for  actual  school  use 
iind  also  build  machines  and  do  work  for 
loc.'il  (Irmi  on  a contract  basis.  The  elec- 
tricians and  itcam  engineer  students  also 
h-ep  the  industrial,  or  vocational,  school 


lighted  and  heated  and  the  power  going 
for  both  the  day  and  nlglit  classes. 

"Ring  In”  and  "Ring  Out." 

The  work  In  these;  “sliop.s”  setuns  to'  he 
ct  ganlzed  and  handled  on  an  ai  t il  busi- 
ness bashs,  an<l  the  last  mnntb.'-  of  the 
course  of  two  to  four  years  work  la  done 
■with  sotnethlng  apr>roa<dilng  commercial 
speed.  The  pupils  “ring  In”  and  "ring 
out,"  the  same  as  factory  operatives,  by 
using  the  ordinary  registering  nutomntic 
clock  system.  Overalls  are  used,  and 
there  Is  tha  same  “washing  up”  that  one 
would  encbtinter  In  “real  Industry.”  Of 
course.  It  is  really  not  a machine  factory, 
a wood  working  plant,  an  electrician’s 
plant  or  a real  “steam  job,”  but  there  Is 
a more  or  less  close  ai)prexlniatlon. 

Generally  speaking,  the  boys  spend  half 
the  day  In  these  shops  and  the  other  half 
day  In  the  f^oolrooms  under  the  sanio 
roof.  Thes^schoolrooms  arc  not  much 
like  those  of  the  ordinary  school,  or  even 
like  manual  tralnlnfe  schoolrooms.  They 
look  more  like  draftsmen’s  quarters.  In 
them,  the  boys  who.  for  example,  are  at 
work  in  the  morning  In  the  machine  shops, 
are  making  their  drawings  or  blue  prints, 
or  are  applying  theory  to  the  work  they 
are  doing  in  the  shop  in  the  alternate  pe- 
riod. The  cabinet  makers  and  carpenters 
are  likewise  making  their  drawings  or 
studying  current  problems  or  Improve- 
ments In  the  work  they  are  actually  do- 
ing under  as  nearly  real  commercial  con- 
ditions as  po.sslble.  The  electrical  pu- 
pils, for  example,  make  their  drawings 
and  work  out  the  plans  and  specifications 
of  their  w’ork,  and  then  translate  thetr 
own  thoughts  Into  actual  construction,  or 
In  such  work  as  wiring.  They  have  done 
an  exceptionlly  creditable  lot  of  wiring  in 
the  vocational  school  building. 

Boys  Reorganized  Monthly. 

Also,  in  the  operation  of  the  electrical 
plant  and  in  shop  work,  the  boys  are  so 
reorganized  monthly  that  the  best  one  of 
the  students  is  the  fully  responsible 
chief  engineer,  the  next  best  are  assist- 
ants and  under  them  come  the  six  fore- 
men in  different  groups.  In  the  two  or 
three  years’  course  the  ordinary  student 
ought  to  fill  about  every  kind  of  position, 
as  well  as  actually  do  all  the  various 
kinds  of  fundamental  electrical  work  in 
and  out  of  the  shop,  on  about  everything 
from  designing  a call  bell  system  running 
up'  to  sixteen  bells  and  then  installing  it, 
to  working  out  certain  telephone  installa- 
tions. 

In  all  of  these  classes  in  the  school- 
rooms there  Is  teaching  of  English,  but 
it  Is  based  on  the  actual  lingo  and  his- 
tory of  the  trade;  there  is  teaching  of 
mathematics,  but  It  Is  the  mathematics 
that  applies  to  the  Job  and  the  trade; 
there  is  teaching  of  history,  geography 
and  general  cultural  subjects,  but  like- 
wise all  this  is  taught  through  and  as  a 
part  of  the  trade  that  the  boy  has  se- 
lected. In  short,  there  Is  about  every- 
thing here  that  makes  the  difference  be- 
tween maunal  and  theoretical  industrial 
training  on  one  side,  and  real  vocational 
education  v/hich  lands  a young  man  far 
Inside  the  portals  of  a job. 

Defect  in  This  Kind  of  School. 

There  Is  a defect  In  this  kind  of  a public 
school  which  will  be  pointed  out  in  some 
detail  later,  but,  briefly  stated.  It  is  this: 
In  Massachusetts  there  are  270  industries 
— abo;it  the  same  number  as  in  Indiana— 
and  In  this  school  and  practically  all  other 
vocational  educational  schools  In  this 
country,  only  five  or  six  of  the  industries 
are  taught.  In  short,  if  the  present  un- 
developed vocational  system  were  imposed 
all  over  the  country  there  would,  in  a few 
years,  be  such  a flood  of  student  carpen- 
iers,  machinists,  electricians,  steam  en- 
gineers, metal  workers,  printers,  etc.,  as 
possibly  to  affect  seriously  the  economic 
balance.  This  might  be  detrimental  even 
though  the  education  might  produce 
young  men  who,  being  more  thoroughly 


and  generally  rdiicatoil,  would  be  capaJito 
of  ral.slng  the  cfilclency  of  tln-Mi  Induit- 
tries.  On  the  other  hand.  If  vocational 
ed\ii'atlon  Were  applied  more  Kein  rally  to 
a wider  range  of  tin'  270  Industries,  the 
|■^rl!el  would  probably  be  highly  bene- 
ficial to  all  industry,  and  to  the  waga 
earners. 

Differing  materially  from  schools  of 
the  Beverly  type,  which  keep  the  boys  In 
w.'ige  earning  Industry  every  other  w'’ck. 
Voiatlonal  Hchooli  of  the  New  Bedford 
type  keep  them  out  of  wage  earning  in- 
dustry entirely  during  their  schooling,  ex- 
cept wh<'n  oreuslonally  the  school  con- 
trueif  to  bullil  lertaln  machines  or  do 
commercial  work. 

Reduction  of  Actual  Coat. 

Because  of  real  productive  work  per- 
formed for  the  public  .school  board  or 
;,uld,  the  real  cost  of  such  a school  la  not 
80  high  as  It  would  at  first  seem  This 
Is  the  InlrTesling  side  for  Indiana,  right 
now,  of  tile  New  Bedford  type  of  .school. 
But  fir.st,  It  Is  well  to  state  more  fully 
the  wider  scope  of  the  school.  At  this 
time  about  one  hundred  boya  and  forty 
girls  arc  In  Its  day  school.  But  when 
the  day’s  work  Is  done  this  school  plant  s 
efficiency  has  just  begun.  Thfrday  school 
is  for  the,  boys  and  girls  who  are  really 
from  fourteen  to  sixteen  or  eighteen  years 
old.  There  are,  however,  boys  and  girls 
abovf;  slxteim,  and  men  and  women.  In 
the  grind  of  real  Industry,  who  need 
greater  training  In  their  work,  or  who 
desire  to  step  trom  it  to  a closely  allied 
Indu.stry.  , 

For  example*  of  the  latter,  a structural 
iron  worker  might  desire  to  gain  an  In- 
sight into  draftsman.shlp,  or  a ma- 
chinist might  desire  to  develop  Into  a-  tool 
cutrer.  In  the  other  class,  a machinist 
working  on  a lathe  might  want  to  equip 
himself  to  do  milling  work.  This  school 
is  open  and  run  at  night  as  a public 
free  school  for  such  men  and  women  In 
trade  who  are  ambitious,  or  for  women 
who,  ill  trade,  have  matrimonial  or  other 
homemaking  prospects  or  needs  and  who 
can  come  to  this  school  and  take  a home- 
making course  in  all  the  home  arts 
making  and  trimming  their  own  hats  to 
cooking. 

Night  School  Classes. 

Over  nine  hundred  men  and  women 
moved  by  trade  and  home  needs  or  am- 
bitions, attend  these  night  school  classes 
in  New  Bedford,  which  is  now  a city  of 
100,000  people— the  first  or  second  city  In 
point  of  textile  spindles  in  this  country. 
The  central  plant  is  too  small  to  meet 
the  great  demands  of  the  ambitions. 
“Branch”  classes  are  held  at  various 
points.  , , 

When  its  combined  day  and  night  work 
is  considered  the  New  Bedford  public  in- 
dustrial school  is  a large  Institution.  The 
budget  or  apui’opriation  for  this  work  for 
the  coming  year  is  $48,000,  which  is  to 
cover  all  expenses  from  quarters  and 
teachers  to  materials  and  normal  addi- 
tion of  equipment.  It  will  be  supplemented 
by  the  trade  sales  of  product,  and,  on 
the  other  side,  the  state  will  repay  half 
the  real  “maintenance  bill”  and  thm 
will  reduce  New  Bedford’s  actual  bill 
probably  to  $25,000,  This  would  be  still 
furt'ner  reduced  If  cash  credit  were  gn'en 
for  work  and  product  ■w'hich  the  school 
furnishes  to  or  manufactures  for  the 
general  school  plant.  Figured  on  the  basis 
of  day  pupils  alone,  the  special  training 
may  be  expensive,  but  this  is  not  all  the 
work.  Also  It  Is  well  to. note  the  fact 
that  in  such  a school  each  pupil  is  an 
Individual,  handled  as  a separate  prob- 
lem, working  on  his  own  and  not  class 
work,  and  is  advanced  as  he,  not  all  his 
associates,  moves. 

Of  Great  Interest  to  Indiana. 

Finally,  the  New  Bedford  public  in- 
dustrial school  building  itself  Is  of  great 
interest  to  those  who  are  approaching  the 


VOCATIONAL  EDUCATION 


9 


handling  of  the  problem  of  vocational 
education  in  Indiana.  The  scheol  build- 
ing is  in  an  old,  practically  deserted 
wagon  factory.  The  building  is  rented  at 
$3,000  a year.  When  it  was  first  occupied 
four  years  ago  there  was  nothing  in  it 
except  a central  line  shaft.  The  school 
began  on  that  basis. 

The  boys  have  built  as  they  studied 
their  trades.  The  carpenters  and  .loiners, 
in  their  wood  working  studies,  have  par- 
titioned the  great  spaces  up  into  rooms; 
the  electrical  students  have  wired  and 
lighted  the  school;  the  machinists  and 
steam  engineers  have  provided  for  its 
steam  heating;  the  machinists  have  built 
some  of  its  mechanical  equipment,  and 
the  domestic  arts  girls  have  had  some- 
thing to  do,  too,  in  making  it  a real  in- 
dustrial school.  It  is  asserted  that  the 
total  cost  of  the  whole  plant,  represent- 
ed in  raw  materials  converted  into  real 
school  plant,  is  $26,000. 

Here  the  boys  have  had  real  construc- 
tion and  have  virtually  built,  heated  and 
lighted  their  own  industrial  home.  It 
stands  for  something  to  them.  To  be 
sure  some  of  it  is  crude,  and  it  does 
not  look  like  a public  school— neither  does 
the  “ringing  in”  and  “ringing  out”  fac- 
tory clock;  but  there  are  at  least  some 
who  think  that  there  is  in  such  a pupil 
built  school  as  this  a great  deal  more 
than  partial  solution  of  the  great  ques- 
tion  of  financing  vocational  education. 


WHY  CHILDREN  PREFER 
WORK. 


Helen  M.  Todd,  in  a remarkable  arti- 
We  under  the  above  title,  published  in 
McClure  s Magazine  (April,  1913),  goes 
into  a broad  analysis  of  the  defects  of 
tne  public  school  system.  She  gives  an- 
swers  that  many  of  the  children  gave  her 
Pffiferred  to  be  in  industry  in- 
stead  of  school.  While  the  answers  give 
= 1,^  preference,  they  do  not 

aim  directly  at  the  economic  necessity  or 
excuse,  in  most  cases.  Here  are  the  rea- 
sons given : 

never  understands  what  they  tells 
^2?^  ^ school,  and  you  can  learn  right 

things  in  a factory.”  “They 
am  t always  pickin’  on  you  because  you 
don  t know  things  in  a factory.”  “You 
t’ings  right  in  school.” 
ine  boss  he  never  hits  yer,  er  slaps  yer 
face,  er  pulls  yer  ears,  er  makes  yer  stay 
m at  recess.  ’ “It’s  so  hard  to  learn.’  "I 
”®t>t  l^e  to  learn.”  “I  couldn’t  learn.” 

ihe  children  don’t  holler  at  ye  and  call 
ye  a Christ-killer  in  a factory.”  “They 
don  t call  ye  a Dago.”  “They’re  good  to 
you  at  home  when  you  earn  money.” 

xouse  can  eat  slttln’  dowm,  when  youse 
wmrk.  ’ You  can  go  to  the  nickel  show.” 

X ou  don  t have  to  work  so  hard  at  night 
when  you  get  home.”  “Yer  folks  don’t  hit 
can  buy  shoes  for  the 
Daoy.  You  can  give  your  mother  yer 
^wi®’tyelop.”  “What  ye  learn  in  school 
*^2  good.  Ye  git  paid  just  as  much 
in  the  factory  if  ye  never  was  there. 

he  never  went  to  school.” 
1 hat  boy  can’t  speak  English,  and  he 
gets  $6.  I only  get  $4,  and  I’ve  been 
through  the  sixth  grade.”  “When  my 
brother,  is  fourteen,  I’m  going  to  get  him 
a job  here.  Then,  my  mother  says,  we’ll 
take  the  baby  out  of  the  ’Sylum  for  the 
Half  Orphans.”  “School  ain’t  no  good. 
When  you  works  a whole  month  at  school 
the  teacher  she  gives  you  a card  to  take 
home,  that  says  how  you  ain’t  any  good. 
And  yer  folks  hollers  on  yer  an’  hits 
yer.”  “Oncet  I worked  in  a night  school 
in  the  Settlement,  an’  in  the  day  school 
too.  Gee,  I humped  myself.  1 got  three 
cards  with  ‘excellent’  on  ’em.  An’  they 
never  did  me  no  good.  My  mother  she 
kept  ’em  in  the  Bible,  an’  they  never  did 
her  no  good,  neither.  They  ain’t  like  a 
pay  envelope.”  “School  ain’t  no  good. 
The  Holy  Father  he  can  send  ye  to  hell, 
and  the  boss  can  take  away  yer  job  er 
raise  yer  pay.  The  teacher  she  .can’t  do 
nothing.” 


One  of  the  Many  Means  by 
Which  Practical  Education 
Is  Carried  On. 


VOCATIONAL  SCHOOL  VARIETY 


Instruction  for  Adults  as  Well  as 
Young  People,  Aiding  Workers 
Toward  Advancement. 


[By  E.  I.  Lewis,  Staff  Correspondent  of  The 
Indianapolis  News] 

BOSTON,  April  29.— Boston— all  Massa- 
chusetts—is  little  short  of  a great  labora- 
tory of  experimentation  in  vocational  ed- 
ucation. The  variety  In  the  details  of 
conducting  the  schools  is  too  great  for 
anything  like  a complete  review  of  them. 

For  example,  upder  the  state  aid  law. 
similar  in  some  respects  to  the  new  Indi- 
ana vocational  education  law’s  provi- 
sions for  state  aid,  a model  home  has 
been  opened  in  the  candy  workers’  sec- 
tion of  Boston.  It  is  a four-room  affair, 
furnished  cheaply,  but  in  good  taste  and 
durability,  to  which  classes  of  girls  come 
from  the  big  candy  factories.  The  classes 
are  groups  of  ten  girls,  and  the  course 
extends  over  thirty  weeks,  the  girls  com- 
ing twice  a week  for  two-hour  sessions, 
the  employers  giving  them  the  time  off 
work  without  deduction  in  pay. 

Setting  of  the  Model  Home. 

The  model  home  is  within  easy  stone’s 
throw  of  famous  old  North  church,  in 
whose  belfry  was  hung  the  signal  light 
which  sent  Paul  Revere,  awaiting  the  sig- 
nal over  In  Charleston,  speeding  up 
through  every  Middlesex  village  and  town, 
calling  the  minute  men  out.  If  Paul  were 
to  return  to  Boston  and  stroll  up  the  old 
church  hill  he  would  wonder  what  all  the 
jargon  of  uttered  sounds  meant.  Twenty 
thousand  Italians  are  colonized  in  close 
quarters  around  the  old  church,  and  per- 
haps-another  five  thousand  orthodox  Jews 
are  mixed  in  with  them,  or  within  a quar- 
ter of  a mile  of  the  old  church.  Down 
into  this  Little  Italy  and  Warsaw  Ghetto 
has  been  dropped  the  little  four-room 
apartment,  behind  whose  windows  bristle 
white  curtains.  Inside,  the  girls  are 
taught,  in  their  little  groups  of  ten, 
American  home  methods  and  ideals. 

'rhe  whole  house  is  furnished  and  all 
the  work  Inside,  from  cooking  to  general 
housework,  is  organized  on  the  basis  of 
the  home  of  a husband  who  is  getting  $15 
a week.  As  a rule,  the  girls  who  come  to 
it  are  expecting  to  marry  very  soon,  and. 
as  a rule,  they  marry  $15  men.  Among 
other  tilings,  the  thirty  weeks’  course  im- 
presses on  them  the  fict  that  before  they 
marry  the  couple  must  save  up  enough 
money  to  buy  the  furniture  and  full 
house  equipment,  if  they  are  really  to 
have  a home. 

In  this  little  home  the  furniture  is  of 
the  plain  best  mission  type;  the  walls  are 
papered  in  good  taste;  cheap  but  well 
chosen  pictures  are^  properly  placed,  and 
the  simplest  little  curtains  impressively 


show  the  attractiveness  of  cleanliness. 
There  are  good,  inexpensive  table  china 
and  glassware  and  4treal  silver”  knives, 
forks  and  spoons.  The  kitchen  is  mod- 
ern, even  to  an  inexpensive  but  substan- 
tial cabinet  and  a good,  durable  work 
table;  and  likewise  is  the  bedroom  sen- 
sibly fitted  up. 

Everything  is  “homey”  and  wonderful- 
ly simple  and  clean,  and  perhaps  it  is  the 
first  time  such  girls  have  ever  come  into 
a house  that  was  in  order,  was  not  chock 
full  of  red  plush  furniture,  bric-a-brac 
and  litter,  and  is  really  New  England  in 
its  primness.  All  the  testimony,  and  the 
way  the  girls  come  to  it  in  “continuation 
classes,”  twice  a week,  indicates  that  it 
makes  a tremendous  impression. 

The  “real  sliver  knives,  forks  and 
spoons!”  Oh,  how  they  wish  they  could 
have  “real  silver  knives,  forks  and 
spoons”  when  they  marry;  and  how  won- 
derfully delighted  they  are  when  they 
find  that  if  they  will  Just  quit  going  to 
the  moving  picture  show  every  night  they 
can  save  up  enough  to  have  them,  for 
they  cost  only  $5!  And  the  plain  white 
curtains!  It  Is  pitiful  the  way  some  of 
them  pat  the  bed  and  take  to  the  cook- 
ing. Such  “model  home”  public  schools 
are  to  be  opened  in  mill  centers.  So  goes 
vocational  education  In  Massachusetts  in 
one  of  its  many  phases. 

Out  of  Industrial  “Blind  Alleys.” 

Twice  a week  the  errand,  stock  and 
cash  boys  and  girls,  in  squads,  troop  out 
of  Boston  stores  on  two  hours  of  the  em- 
ployers’ time,  to  take  “continuation 
work,”  which  is  aimed  to  open  up  tha 
blind  alley  they  are  in  industrially.  This 
-term,  “blind  alley  job,’’  must  have  been 
coined  down  here.  It  really  means  some- 
thing in  this  big  city,  whose  curving,  hlg- 
gledy-piggled.y  streets  follow  the  old  cow- 
paths  and  other  original  lanes  and  short- 
cuts. A stranger,  hurrying,  starts  in  what 
seems  to  be  a rather  pretentious  thor- 
oughfare, and  soon  he  |flnds  that  it  ends 
in  a lot  of  jagged  angles,  none  of  whicli 
has  an  outlet.  The  hurrying  stranger  has 
to  go  way  back  to  where  he  entered  and 
make  a new  start  to  get  anywhere.  He 
has  been  in  a blind  alley. 

That  is  exactly  the  predicament  of  the 
children  before  coming  to  the  continua- 
tion school.  Ungulded,  but  tired  to  death 
of  the  old  school,  or  forced  out  of  It  by 
economic  pressure,  they  have  fallen  into 
one  of  life’s  blind  alleys.  The  great  effort 
now  Is  to  get  them  out  of  it,  or  find  them 
a wall  they  can  climb  over— and  boost 
them  over  it.  So  long  as  they  stay  in  the 
“blind  alley”  they  are  going  to  work  for 
children's  wages.  They  are  getting  from 
$3.50  to  $5.50  a week— and  there  is  not 
much  left  for  their  work  when  .their  car 
fare  and  meager  lunches  come  out  of  it. 
Already  some  are  getting  along  sixteen, 
seventeen  or  eighteen  years  of  age.  So, 
by  the  grace  of  their  employers,  they  are 
coming  to  a public  school  that  is  training 
them  for  promotion— for  places  in  the 
office  or  positions  as  salesmen  and  sales- 
women. They  come  for  four  hours  a week 
for  thirty  weeks,  and  it  is  wonderful  how 
they  take  up  applied  arithmetic,  reading, 
writing,  commercial  geography,  spelling, 
hygiene,  physics  and  those  arts  of  sale.s- 
manship  which  run  from  meeting  a cus- 
tomer properly  to  turning  the  mind  of 
that  possible  customer  in  favor  of  the 
store.  And  when  they  have  mounted  this 
blind  alley  wall,  or  get  out,  they  may 
seek  further  development  by  the  same 
processes  in  other  classes  which  are 
aimed  to  make  a salesman  or  saleswoman 
capable  of  better  positions— direction,  buy- 
ing, etc. 

Continuation  Schools. 

It  is  impossible  in  a limited  space  to  tell 
fully  of  this  highly  interesting  wodk.  Only 
types  can  be  given.  Young  men  from  the 
wholesale  shoe  and  leather  houses— many 
of  them  college  graduates,  by  the  way — 
likewise  go  to  the  continuation  schools 
for  two-hour  classes  twice  a week,  and 


10 


VOCATIONAL  EDUCATION 


thor«  study  leather  from  the  ralslne  of 
the  cattle  in  different  parts  of  the  world, 
through  th(!  slaughterlug.  murketlng,  tan- 
ning and  other  proceHsos  Into  Hhocs,  and 
eijulp  ttieinselres  with  seureliing  linowl- 
edge  of  different  hinds  and  nnu  llth-y  of 
leather  and  shoes.  Trips  are  made  hv 
these  classes  to  the  slauKhter  houses,  the 
lannerles,  the  leather  houses  and  the  shoo 
factories,  llrst  to  those  turning  out  three 
ihousaiui  iiairs  of  shoes  a day  and  then  to 
a larger  plant,  turning  out  fifteen  thou- 
sand pairs  a day. 

ihese  men  are  fitting  themselves  for 
hetler  and  higher  service,  or  for  business 
for  themselves.  The  courses  In  salesman- 
ship. banking,  ttie  clothing  trade,  dry 
goods  and  other  mercantile  and  clerical 
lines  are  coininerclally  thorough. 

-.,1 interesting  “nlglit  continuation 
school  is  run  In  the  afternoon.  Cooks, 
waiters  and  others  around  hotels  and 

Pnbllc  places  who  can  not  speak 
i!,ngllsh  come  to  this  continuation  school 
twice  a week.  The  school  also  teaches 
Spanish  and  Italian  for  commercial  and 
tnauslrial  purposes  to  Americans. 

One  of  the  departments  of  this  public 
Bcnooling  now  being  organized  l.s  for  girls 
of  ten  years  or  over,  who  must  bring  a 
baby  sister  or  brother  with  them.  It  is 
found  that  the  foreigners  turn  the  In- 
fants over  to  little  daughters  to  care  for 
them,  and  this  school  is  to  teach  them 
how  to  care  for  them  properly,  and  to 
take  the  high  presssure  call  off  the  little 
White  hearse. 

This  public  ‘‘continuation  school"  op- 
erating '.n  the  daytime  in  Boston,  helping 
boys  and  girls  out  of  blind  alleys  and 
helping  others  to  greater  efficiency,  is  now 
patronized  by  about  one  thousand  people, 
who  are  taking  the  full  courses  and  are 
working  hard  at  them.  Others  have  to 
drop  out  to  make  room  for  the  really 
ambitious. 

Night  Vocational  Schools. 

Then  there  are  the  night  public  voca- 
tional schools  in  Boston  and  all  over 
Atassachusetts,  where  people  in  the 
trades  in  the  daytime  can  come  and  take 
courses  of  study  as  outlined  in  the  de- 
scription of  the  New  Bedford  public  in- 
dustrial school.  They  give  night  school 
course.s  in  which  machinists,  for  example, 
can  learn  to  opeiate  another  kind  of  ma- 
chine, or  can  study  to  become  a tool- 
maker;  in  which  janitors,  for  example, 
rai.se  into  positioiis  of  licensed  firemen 
and  firemen  into  licensed  engineers.  Such, 
courses  are  provided  for  practically  all 
the  fundamental  arts.  Metal  workers, 
structural  Iron  workers,  carpenters,  etc., 
can  learn  draftsmanship,  or  plan  making, 
and  the  blue-print  reading  art.  It  is 
proposed  to  open  development  schools  of 
this  kind  for  teamsters. 

In  night  schools  women  in  industry 
may  learn  other  kindred  machines  or 
allied  trades  or  arts:  and  women  of  all 
kinds  can  take  courses  in  household  arts 
for  home  purposes. 

Then,  on  top  of  all  this  vocational, 
higher  efficiency  and  good  citizenship 
work  carried  on  at  public  expense,  often 
utilizing  the  clay  vocational  school  equip- 
luent,  the  mechanical  arts  schools,  and 
the  domestic  arts  eciuipment  of  public 
schools,  ig  the  great  superstructure  of 
day  and  night  work  by  private  societies. 
Home  of  it  is  very  great  and  reaches  not 
iiiiriiln  (Is,  but  really  thousands  of  people 
in  the  state.  81111  on  top  of  this  is  the 
!'r(.at  vocational  work  of  the  commercial 
H'.tiools  whicli.  In  day  and  rilght  sessions, 
tiiin  out  bookkeepers,  stcuiographers,  typ- 
li-'  . etc.  Actual  ne-ds  of  education  are 
b‘-'-iuriIng  to  he  met  here. 

Age  Lines  Are  Broken  Down. 

The  linpr'cMsIVi  thing  Is  lluit  In  prac- 
tii  .illy  all  M.'i  :c'’hu  (-Its  town.s  and  cities 
flo-.v,  oni  can  pur  ue  practically  unj 


vocational,  honie-makliiK  or  cltlzen- 
inukiug  line  of  (tiici.c  /(iKjtiier  lnipr»-sys| ve 
tiling  Is  that  wlille  Mjisvactiii  ■,  1 1 is  eyl- 
dently  st-eltig  ttis,  tlicri*  is  unottier  edii- 
liou  ttiaii  tliat  of  llie  old  line  ‘'cullurol" 
type,  wlilcli  So  iiiaMy  Ijoys  and  girl:;  re- 
ject Or  tun  not  afford.  It  is  also  tciirltig 
down  tlie  age  llruilatlon.s.  In  tliesc  great 
experiments  everybody,  at  1(  ust  up  to  for- 
t.v  j’ears  of  age,  Is  u child  In  the  eyes  of 
the  educulor.s  In  inulter-  wliereln  he  or 
she  nced.s  develoiuneiit.  And  iirovislori 
of  sclioollng  for  peoide,  from  ttie  ten« 
year-old  girl  wlio  iniisl  care  for  liuliy 
to  a forty-year-old  mactilnist  wlio  wishes 
to  advance,  is  com|ng  to  be  regarded  as 
a legitimate  charge  on  society  In  soino 
form  or  oilier. 

Massachusetts  has  a JS.OOO.OOO  equip- 
ment ill  free  day  and  nlglit  schools  for 
the  improvement  of  the  textile  industry, 
and  its  workers.  The  upkeep  cost  is 
hea.vy,  and  the  attendance,  except  in 
night  cla.sses,  i.s  not  very  satisfactory, 
tills  lias  taught  Massacliusetts,  or  is 
teaching  her,  one  great  tiling,  'riiut  Is, 
not  to  make  a big  outlay  on  school  build- 
ings—a feature  emphasized  in  the  articles 
descriptive  of  the  New  Bedford  public 
industrial  school,  and  of  the  Boston  and  I 
Manhattan  Trade  Schools  for  (Jlrls.  1 

Ma.sachusetts  is  proceeding  likewise  in  1 
vocational  education  for  boys  on  the  t 
farm.  But  the  vocation  agrliultural 
work  is  another  story  to  be  handled  sep- 
arately,  for  it  is  of  great  interest  to  In-  ' 
diana. 


HIGH  WAGES  AND  CHEAP 
WAGES. 


It  has  been  aptly  said  that  America  is 
little  else  than  a huge  stevedore,  bearing 
down  to  the  ships  of  the  sea  crude  and 
semi-crude  materials  for  the  employment 
of  the  capital,  labor  and  intellect  of 
foreign  nations.  Exportation  of  these 
partly  manufactured  materials  is  a de- 
pletion of  our  natural  resources,  the 
heritage  of  the  age.s  In  mine,  forest  and 
soil  fertility,  never  to  be  restored. 

Every  bushel  of  w'heat  exported  car- 
ries 27  cents’  worth  of  phosphorus,  every 
bushel  of  corn  13  cents,  and  each  pound 
of  cotton  3 cents.  These  figures  fairly 
represent  the  supposed  profits.  Today 
our  best  agricultural  states,  even  those 
only  fifty  years  under  cultivation,  yield 
only  half  as  much  an  acre  at  the  thou- 
sand-year-old soils  of  Europe.  We  have 
been  capitalizing  soil  values  to  an  ex- 
treme and  hurtful  extent,  where  we 
thought  ,we  were  making  real  and  sub- 
stantial profits.  There  were  reasons  in 
the  past  for  these  exportations  of  various 
raw  and  semi-crude  products,  and  we 
have,  on  the  whole,  splendidly  prospered; 
but  those  reasons  are  no  longer  effective. 

Now  we  must  use  every  effort  to  send 
our  products  abroad  ready  for  consump- 
tion, carrying  the  maximum  and  not  the 
minimum  of  American  labor  and  skill. 
Think  of  the  difference  in  the  amount  of 
labor  carried  by  a typewriter  and  a bar 
of  iron;  a planer  and  a billet.  The  exports 
of  England,  Germany  and  France  are  fin- 
ished products,  mostly  labor;  most  of  ours 
carry  only  enough  labor  to  make  them  fit 
for  ships  cargo. 

Our  labor  is  in  many  re.spects  the  most 
efficient  in  the  world.  We  are  proud  of 
"our  men  behind  the  guns”;  their  broth- 
ers, the  men  behind  the  machines  in  our 
factories,  have  no  less  of  ability  and 
courage  of  accomplishment.  There  is 
brains  in  a typewriter,  in  a sewing  ma- 
chine, In  shoes.  Those  are  already  ex- 
ported in  volume,  and  point  the  way  to 
tens  of  thou.sands  of  other  products, 
whlcli  can  he  made  as  welcome  in  foreign 
markets.  Tliese  sliow,  too,  that  high-paid 
American  wages  are  cheap  wages. 

H.  E.  MILES. 

Chairman  of  tlie  Educational  Committee 
(if  the  National  Manufacturers’  Associa- 
tion. 


GETS  TO  BOyS  AND 


Indiana’s  Proposed  New  Educa- 
tion Has  Already  Been  Tried 
in  Massachusetts. 


RESULTS  PUT  TO  SURE  TEST 


Work  of  Boys  Side  by  Side  With  That 
of  Fathers  Shows  Up  One  or 
Other  Quickly. 


Illy  E.  I.  I.ewU,  Staff  Correspondent  of  The 
IncllariapoliH  NewM| 

NORTH IlAMB'ro.N,  Masn.,  May  2 — The 
revolt  In  cultured  Massachut.'  tts  against 
exclusively  "cultural’’  education  and  It.s 
leadership  of  a national  movement  for  a 
public  school  system  that  will  impart  "ap- 
plied knowledge,"  or  vocational  educa- 
tion, has  a very  close  connection  with  In- 
diana’s new  agricultural  policy. 

Perhaps  It  may  be  news  to  Indiana 
farmers  that  there  Is  new  state  agri- 
cultural policy.  It  is  one  of  the  optional 
sort— Its  local  adoption  resting  with  lo- 
calities or  communities.  It  is  a fact  that 
the  state,  by  the  enactment  of  the  new 
vocational  educational  law,  does  recede 
from  the  old  policy  of  providing  public 
free  courses  of  study  only  to  produce 
"agriculturists.’’  The  privilege  is  now  ex- 
tended to  the  farming  communities  to 
educate  their  boys  to  be  "farmers,"  and 
witli  the  privilege  go  state  funds.  In 
short,  the  state  has  opened  a way  for 
agricultural  communities  to  give  the  boys 
and  girls  of  the  farm  the  kind  of  educa- 
tion they  probably  need. 

Indiana's  New  Law. 

The  new  Indiana  vocational  education 
law  provides  that  “any  school  city,  town 
or  township  may,  through  its  board  of 
school  trustees  or  school  commissioners 
or  township  trustee,  establish  vocational 
schools  or  departments  [in  the  existing 
schools]  for  industrial,  agricultural  and 
domestic  science  education  in  the  same 
manner  as  other  .schools  and  departments 
are  established,”  and  may  maintain 
them  the  same  as  the  other  schools 
are  maintained,  or  by  a special  tax 
levy.  The  law ' also  specifically  states 
that  these  schools  shall  be  of  less 
than  college,  grade— in  fact,  common 
schools  of  special  character— and  that 
the.v  arc  designed  to  meet  the  vo- 
cational needs  of  persons  over  fourteen 
years  of  age.  In  other  words,  they  are 
for  the  boys  and  girls  w'ho  drop  out  of 
school  just  as  soon  as  the  compulsory 
school  attendance  age  limit  is  reached. 
'The  new  idea  is  to  get  hold  of  them 
then  and  by  a new  kind  of  schooling, 
continue  to  educate  them,  but  to  educate 
them  as  workers. 

Elementary  and  Advanced  Teaching. 

The  new  Indiana  law  goes  further  in 
the  case  of  agriculture.  It  requires  that 
elementary  argiculture  be  taught  in  the 
grades.  Local  advisory  boards  are  pr(y- 


VOCATIONAL  EDUCATION 


11’ 


Tided  for.  and  there  is  provision  In  the 
state  organization  for  a deputy  or 
“agent”  of  tlie  state  superintendent  of 
public  instruction,  wlio  is  also  connected 
witii  Purdue  university's  agriculturaJ  ex- 
tension work,  wiio  shall  be  in  supervision 
Of  the  public  school  agricultural  work. 
Teachers  of  such  vocational  subjects  in 
the  schools  will  liave  to  pass  a special  ex- 
amination, Most  of  them  should,  it  is 
thought,  be  farm  boys  witli  Purdue  agri- 
cultural station  training.  The  state  will 
pay  two-tliirds  of  the  instruction  cost  In 
all  of  these  schools  teaching  agriculture. 

The  Indiana  law  goes  still  further.  It 
provides  that  "whenever  twenty  or  more 
residents  of  a county,  who  are  actively 
Interested  in  agriculture,  shall  file  a peti- 
tion for  a ‘county  agent,’  together  with 
a deposit  of  $.'i00  to  be  used  In  defraying 
expenses  of  such  agent”— but  in  reality 
as  an  evidence  cf  good  faith— the  county 
council  “shall”  appropriate  annually  the 
sum  of  $1,500  to  be  used  in  paying  the  sal- 
ary and  other  expenses  of  “said  county 
agent.” 

County  Agents’  Duties. 

The  county  board  of  education  “shall 
then  apply  to  Purdue  university  for  the 
appointment  of  a county  agent,”  appoint- 
ments being  for  one  year.  Then  the  state 
will,  through  Purdue  university,  reim- 
burse the  county  to  the  extent  of  one- 
half  the  annual  salary  of  the  county 
agent,  the  state  limiting  its  half,  how- 
ever, to  $1,000,  This  county  agent’s  du- 
ties include  “assisting”  the  county  super- 
intendent of  schools  and  the  teachers  in 
giving  “practical”  education  in  agricul- 
tural and  domestic  science.  The  “prac- 
tical” means  a great  deal.  The  county 
agent  is  also  to  get  in  with  the  farmers, 
co-operating  with  them  in  their  institutes, 
farmers’  clubs  and  other  organizations, 
and  it  is  also  to  be  his  duty  td  conduct 
practical  farm  demonstrations,  boys’  and 
girls’  clubs  and  contest  work  and  “other 
movements  for  the  advancement  of  agri- 
culture and  country  life”:  and  he  is  also 
to  give  advice  to  farmers  on  practical 
farm  problems. 

I"  .short,  there  are  providea  now  ample 
facilities  for  any  community,  or  any 
county,  to  have  an  altogether  new  kind  of 
school  or  parts  of  schools,  for  children 
over  fourteen  years  of  age  who  want 
to  know  their  soil  and  how  to  grow 
bigger,  better  and  more  corn  or  anything 
else:  while  for  the  girls  there  is  provided 
Mucatlon  in  house  arts  and  economies. 
The  law  in  providing  an  expert  adviser 
for  farmers  also  takes  the  limit  off  the 
school  age. 

Imported  From  Massachusetts. 

This  new  Hoosier  idea  is  imported,  for 
the  most  part,  from  Massachusetts — in 
reality,  from  down  here  in  the  Connecticut 
river  valley.  Only  Indiana  is  going  fur- 
ther in  the  “county  agent”  provision.  How 
does  this  new  wrinkle  work  in  Massachu- 
setts? It  is  a little  too  soon  to  answer  the 
question.  One  thing,  however,  seems  to  ne 
pretty  thoroughly  demonstrated,  and  it  is 
a result  that  was  not  expected.  Here  the 
town  and  city  boys  are  trooping  out  to 
the  agricultural  schools  and  are  getting 
tremendously  interested.  Like  most,  peo- 
ple who  have  not  lived  in  the  country  and 
who  do  not  realize  that  farm  work  is  real 
work,  they  seem  to  be  outdoing  the  coun- 
try boys  in  interest  in  the  new  country 
vocational  education.  They  are  dead  in 
earnest. 

The  schools  are  organized  on  the  “part- 
-time”  basis,  like  the  Industrial  schools 
previously  described.  That  means  that  the 
boy  works  “on  the  .job”  part  of  the  time. 
In  agricultural  public  schools  this  really 
means  that  the  boy  is  supposed  to  have 
a bit  of  real  farm  land  or  live  stock  placed 
in  his  hands  at  home.  Over  it  he  is 
master.  In  applying  for  admittance  to 
these  agricultural  vocational  schools  the 
boy  signs  his  name  to  a state  printed 
form  which  concludes  with:  “I  promise  to 
do  my  best  to  master  and  to  carry  out  the 


teachings  of  this  course  in  both  'project 
study’  and  'project  work.’  ” But  this  is 
not  enough.  The  parent  and  guardian 
must  sign  a form  whlcli  includes  this:  '1 
• • ♦ promise  that  he  shall  have  suffi- 
cient time,  land  and  equipment  for  Ids 
homo  'project  work’  in  connection  witli 
the  course.  1 promise  to  the  school  my 
support  and  co-operation,  and  state  tliat  I 
understand  what  the  course  is  to  be  and 
wliat  the  demands  on  the  pupil’s  time  will 
be.”  Those  pledges  have  the  pupil  and 
his  parents  or  guardian,  tied  up  pretty 
well. 

How  the  Farm  Pupil  Works. 

The  terms  “project  study”  and  "project 
work”  mean  the  pupil’s  part-time  job. 
It  may,  for  example,  be  an  acre  of  corn. 
It  may  be  certain  live  stock— it  is  likely 
both,  and  some  garden,  too.  The  boy  has 
his  own  land,  cows,  chickens,  or  part  of 
the  garden.  In  the  agricultural  school, 
especially  in  the  winter,  he  studies  it.  ap- 
plying to  the  problem  all  of  the  sciences 
pos-slbly  touching  agriculture.  The  “Eng- 
lish Work”  may  be  the  reading  of  good, 
highly  trustworthy,  well  written  and  se- 
lected farm  journals:  his  mathematics  is 
of  the  applied  kind.  He  carries  at  the 
same  time,  especially  in  winter,  certain 
cultural  studies,  as  well  as  learns  how  to 
mend  harness  and  to  do  farm  carpenter- 
ing, forging  and  a lot  of  other  things.  He 
spends  a half  day  at  real  work.  When, 
however,  spring  approaches  he  has  his 
“project”  mapped  out. 

Suppose  it  is  corn.  It  is  not  raised  in 
any  school  “plot,”  and  cared  for  only  up 
to  school  adjournment.  No,  it  is  an  acre 
at  home — right  up  _to,  or  in,  his  father’s 
corn  field.  He  has  worked  out  his  theory, 
even  to  plowing,  fertilizing  and  handling. 
He  advises  with  his  teacher — who  later 
assumes  another  relation— and  from 
cleaning  the  land,  and  plowing,  planting 
and  fertilizing,  through  to  harvesting 
and  marketing,  this  is  his  and  not  his 
father’s  “job”  and  production. 

When  he  is  at  home  for  his  work  half 
day,  he  is  not  absent  from  school,  pro- 
vided he  is  at  work  on  his  “project”— ;and 
at  times  he  stays  the  full  day,  when  it  is 
time  for  plowing  and  planting.  When  the 
regular  school  year  ends  the  teacher  be- 
comes an  inspector,  riding  around  on  his 
motorcycle.  He  has,  already,  taken  a 
three  months’  vacation  in  the  dull  winter 
months,  after  harvest.  He  carries  the 
boy  and  study  through  the  production 
year. 

And  Here  Comes  the  Acid  Test, 

When  one  gets  down  to  vocationa\^  edu- 
cation, here  is  the  acid,  test.  The  “old 
man”  with  his  old  methods  has  corn  right 
alongside  the  boy’s  corn,  and  fathers  do 
not  like  to  be  beaten  at  their  own  game. 
If  the  boy  does  beat  him  out,  lo,  there  is 
an  awakening— and  sometimes  the  “old 
man”  looks  up  the  expert  and  wants  ad- 
vice that  he  formerly  scorned.  If,  how- 
ever, the  boy,  after  having  probably  fig- 
ured out  more  expensive  fertilization  and 
handling  does  not  show  results,  voca- 
tional education  and  all  this  new  theory 
of  agriculture  and  making  two  blades 
grow  where  one  grew  before,  gets  a tre- 
mendous setback.  If  the  old  methods  all 
through  the  community  beat  out  the  new 
school’s  ideas,  the  new  school  must  close 
up  shop,  not  because  support  would  be 
withdrawn,  but  because  the  boy  is  look- 
ing for  results  and  would  drop  'at. 

This  has  not  happened  in  Massachu- 
setts. The  boys  have  been  bringing  a 
new  light  to  the  old  home.  It  has  only 
been  two  years  since  this  new  agricultur- 
al vocational  education  began.  Not  a 
school  has  closed,  and  this  year  they 
jumped  from  five  to  seventeen.  Of  course, 
there  are  failures.  It  is  strange  just  how 
sometimes  the  “boy”  breaks  out  and 
spoils  a good  start,  and  sometimes,  of 
course,  pest  and  other  unforeseen  calam- 
ity comes,  notwithstanding  sprays.  But 
me  boys  are  so  far  ahead  of  the  ‘ old 


man”  th’at  the  schools  Increase  in  num- 
bers and  greatly  in  utteudanci-  and  th* 
old  people  want  to  come  to  . venlng  class- 
es in  .some  instaiices. 

Land  for  the  City  Boy. 

But  the  citj’  or  town  boy  does  iii<t  have 
the  land.  When  he  insists  on  going  to 
the  agrieidtiiral  vocational  school,  land  or 
live  stock  is  obtained  for  him  in  some  in- 
stances, but  If  this  is  not  possible  he 
works  on  the  school  farm  and  then  he 
must  “hire  out”  to  some  progi’esslve 
farmer  or  stock  raiser  and  do  actual 
work— for  pay  and  in  competition  witli 
others.  He  is  graded  on  the  reports  on 
that  work.  The  town  and  city  boys  are 
"making  good”  and  while  the  new  agri- 
cultural educational  system  seems  lo  be 
educating  farm  boys  to  stay  on  the  farm 
as  farmers— showing  them  that  it  can  be 
made  to  pay  better  than  a job  In  town— 
there  seems  to  bo  starting  a real  "back 
to  the  soil”  movement. 

Since  "cultured  Massachusetts”  has 
laid  profane  hands  on  "cultural  educa- 
tion” it  is  raising  trouble  all  along  the 
line  with  it.  These  boys  have  to  keep 
accurate  daily  accounts  of  time  and 
make  reports,  and  when  one  of  them^ 
especially  a city  boy— gets  with  a gooa 
farmer,  gardener,  stock  man  or  chicken 
raiser,  and  is  learning  his  trade  to  great 
advantage  there,  he  Is  left  In  that  posi- 
tion. But  his  education  is  carried  on 
by  a correspondence  method,  in  which 
‘‘his  own  work”  is  the  matter  In  hand. 
He  gets  credits  for  his  work  just  as  if 
he  were  in  school,  and  when  his  course 
is  up  he  comes  in  and  participates  In  the 
commencement  exercises  and  gets  his 
sheepskin.  Only  today  one  such  case  was 
encountered,  in  which  the  boy  is  in  Illi- 
nois. 

Will  Be  Shown  Up  Quickly. 

There  is  no  place  where  vocational  edu- 
cation can  be  so  tested  out  as  to  put 
the  test  right  up  beside  father’s  corn 
field  or  potato  patch:  or  in  handling  cows, 
chickens  or  anything  else  right  beside 
him.  The  old  order  or  the  new  is  going 
to  be  shown  up  very  quickly.  It  is  a 
challenge  from  the  boy  who  is  not  lik- 
ing the  farm  as  it  is  now,  and  who  thinks 
it  might  be  made  better  by  changing  the 
whole  old  order  of  things.  It  is  more  than 
that.  Whenever  we  get  down  to  this  ba- 
sis in  Indiana,  Purdue  university,  as  an 
agricultural  station,  is  either  going  to 
be  "shown  up”  or  is  going  to  show  the 
state  that  it  is  worthy  of  large  tax  sup- 
port. 

There  is,  too,  a final  word.  Do  many 
stop  to  figure  how,  constantly,  our  nation 
is  Impoverished  when  that  w^ich  is  pro- 
duced— straw,  for  example;  carted  off  to 
paper  mills,  and  nitrates  and  other  vital 
Ingredients  in  grain  shipped  abroad— is 
not  returned  in  some  form  to  the  soil  of 
this  nation?  There  is  a greater  economy 
than  that  of  simply  your  farm  and  my 
farm.  It  is  the  national  economy  of 
soil,  and  concerning  that  vital  thing  the 
present  school  system  is  entirely  silent 
even  while  It  teaches  the  farm  boys  and 
girls  Latin. 


Greater  Than  War. 

“We  have  conquered  upon  the  field  of 
battle  in  war;  we  are  now  conquering 
upon  the  field  of  battle  In  commerce  and 
industry.”  E.  G.  Cooley,  in  his  exhaustive 
report  of  ‘‘Vocational  Education  In  Eu- 
rope,” takes  this  simple  statement  of 
— then — Crown  Prince  Priederich,  which 
was  made  on  the  day  after  the  signing 
of  the  treaty  of  Frankfort,  closing  the 
Franco-Prussian  war,  as  the  key  to  the 
secret  of  Germany’s  wonderful  success. 
There  is  a greater  battle  field  than  that 
of  war.  and  Friedrich,  with  the  great 
Bismarck  behind  him,  pointed  to  it.  Suc- 
cess on  that  battle  field  has  been  with- 
out shot  or  shell,  but  gained  with  work- 
ers at  home  who  are  trained  for  efficiency 
in  production.  It  is  the  steady  advance 
over  this  battle  field  that  has  placed 
modern  Germany  among  the  foremost  na- 
tions of  history. 


12 


VOCATIONAL  EDUCATION 


Costly  System  May  Be  Made 
Worthless  by  “Schoolmaster 
Guild”  Domination. 


SO  SAY  MEN  OF  EXPERIENCE 


Trade  Teaching  Must  Be  Under  Dif- 
ferent Sort  of  Direction  and  Type 
of  Teachers,  They  Assert 


IBy  E.  I.  Eewis,  Staff  Correspondent  of  The 
Indianapolis  News] 

BOSTON,  May  3.— Vocational  education 
Is,  In  one  sense,  the  most  dangerous  new 
educational  proposal  that  has  come  up  In 
this  country.  None  realize  It  so  well  as 
its  advocates.  None  see  so  clearly  what 
a fearfully  costly  fizzle  It  can  easily  be 
made  as  those  who  grasp  Its  great  possi- 
bilities for  good. 

This  series  of  articles.  In  which  an  ef- 
fort is  made  to  give  a general  survey  of 
the  vocational  education  movement,  now 
of  particular  Interest  to  Indiana,  has  ap- 
parently been  drawn  almost  wholly  from 
Massachusetts  experiences  and  experi- 
ments. This  is  not  the  fact.  Educators  in 
other  states — Illinois,  Ohio,  Pennsylvania. 
New  Jersey,  New  York  and  . Con- 
necticut—have  been  interviewed  and 
vocational  schools  In  those  states 
also  have  been  visited.  Massachu- 
setts schools  have  only  been  used  to 
Illustrate  types  and  general  methods— (1) 
because  they  were  the  last  visited;  (2)  be- 
cause Massachusetts  has  been  at  work 
on  the  vocational  education  problem 
longest— seven  years— and  has  developed 
all  the  various  types  of  schools,  and  (3) 
because  in  Its  work  It  has  developed  both 
the  best  theories  and  shown  where  lie  the 
greatest  possibilities  of  defects  in  the 
whole  American  vocational  theory. 

The  Williamson  Trade  School  for  Boys 
at  Williamson,  Pa.;  the  Philadelphia, 
Chicago.  New  York,  Albany,  York  and 
other  noted  vocational  day  or  night  school 
experiments,  such  as  those  in  Wisconsin, 
could  have  been  reviewed  in  detail, 
and  scores  of  Massachusetts  voca- 
tional schools,  each  varying  somewhat, 
could  likewise  have  been  described  In  de- 
tail. The  effort,  however,  has  been  to 
present  good  types,  and  to  dwell  on  the 
applied  theory  rather  than  the  numbers 
affected. 

Possibility  of  a Great  Failure. 

Eikewlse,  in  pointing  out  the  dangers 
that  besot  this  new  educational  proposal, 
conclusions  or  stdternents  of  fact  are 
drawn  from  tlio  wide  fi<dd  and  from  men 
In  several  stales  wlio  are  leading  in  the 
national  educational  and  vocational  edu- 
cation work  and  movement.  The  most 
Kerierally  fearer!  ilanger  lies  in  the  fact 
tlral  the  "olrl  line”  srdiool  teacher  guild 
Iniiluth  tirat  no  one  but  a sclmol  leardier 
can  le.ach  onytiilng.  (lennany.  MushucIiu- 
HOtt  i and  the  United  Htatos,  as  a wtiolo. 
offer  :ilrlklng  proof  tiiiit  If  Itui  vocational 
•Uuootion  Ls  turned  over  to  Uiu  present 


school  teacher  guild  another  gient  educa- 
tional failure  will  be  rci;l.'^tered. 

The  term  "another  great  erlucatlonal 
failure”  is  used  advisedly.  Unless  such 
educators  ns  Charles  A.  I’rossr-r.  now  sec- 
retary of  the  National  Society  for  the 
I’romotlon  of  Tndustriul  Education;  IC.  O. 
I’oole.v,  formerly  superintendent  of  the 
Chicago  school.-';  David  Snedden.  coinnils- 
sloner  of  education  in  Massachusetts,  and 
C.  It.  Allen,  present  director  of  vocation- 
al odneation  In  Massnchurelts.  are  Incor- 
rect in  their  history,  manual  training  wa.- 
first  proposed  as  a practical,  vocational 
education.  tV’hcii  the  "school  mash-r”  got 
tlirough  wltli  manual  training  it  bccatrie 
w'hat  It  is  now.  a part  of  that  "cultural 
education"  inacliinery  whlcli  doe.s  not 
meet  the  demands  of  a very  largo  ele- 
ment. 

As  to  Manual  Training. 

It  is  expected  that  this  statement  that 
manual  training  has  been  a failure  will 
raise  up  challengers.  None  of  tliose  men 
who  are  named,  and  others  equally  well 
known  who  could  be  quoted,  would  class 
manual  training  as  a "failure.”  They  think 
it  has  Its  place  in  education  of  the  cul- 
liral  type  and  is  Immensely  valuable,  but 
as  a vocational  educational  measure  It 
has  been  as  notable  a failure  as  was  that 
of  Columbus,  wlio  failed  to  find  a new 
route  to  India,  although  his  discovery  was 
certainly  not  without  value.  Snedden.  in 
lil.s  published  works,  is  on  record  as  stat- 
ing that  "the  vocational  aim  of  manual 
training  is  now  frankly  repudiated." 

The  demand  for  vocational  education  is, 
in  itself,  an  indict nient  of  the  present 
educational  managers  and  their  system, 
charging  them  and  it  with  fallur'e  to  give 
every  child  an  education.  Is  the  charge 
true  or  not  true?  Every  child,  if  its  par- 
ents are  alile,  can  freely  have  a really 
good  education— of  its  kind.  Still,  over 
eight  million  boys  and  girls,  between  the 
ages  of  fourteen  and  eighteen,  are  out  of 
the  schools.  More  than  70  per  cent,  of 
them  did  net  finish  the  elementary  school. 
75  per  cent,  did  not  reach  tlie  eighth  grade 
and  almost  60  per  cent,  did  not  complete 
the  fifth  grade.  Then  comes  the  fact  that 
not  one  child  in  thirty  in  this  country 
'can,  or  does,  take  that  measure  of  freely 
offered  cultural  education  represented 
by  a /high  school  diploma.  The  charge 
is  made  that  the  whole  system  of  tax- 
supported  education  is  built  up  on  the 
theory  that  everybody  is  going  to  live 
the  life  and  have  the  needs  that  90  per 
cent,  of  the  people  at  this  time  do  not 
live  or  do  not  think  they  need.  Manual 
training  has  been  added  to  this  system  of 
education  which  is  built  down  from  the 
university  which  produces  professional 
classes,  rather  than  up  from  the  needs 
of  the  people  under  present  conditions. 

Schoolmaster  Guild’s  Claims. 

The  great  question  now  is  this:  Are 
the  people  who  have  been  dominating  and 
monopolizing  the  educational  system  go- 
ing to-take  over  vocational  education  and 
merge  it,  as  manual  training  has  been 
merged.  Into  the  "cultural”  education 
system?  In  Indiana,  and  elsewhere,  this 
class  deeply  resents  any  encroachment 
on  its  control,  on  the  part  of  the  laymen 
or  any  one  else.  In  Indiana,  however. 
In  the  enactment  of  the  new  vocational 
education  law,  a notable  break  was  made 
In  the  lineup.  The  state  board  of  educa- 
tion was  Veorganized,  and  for  the  first 
time  the  layman  got  in.  It  is  true  that 
of  the  thirteen  memberships  tiie  "scliool- 
inaster  guild"  is  given  ten  places,  but 
tlie  new  law  does  provide  for  three  mem- 
bers “actively  Interested  ' in,  and  of 
known  sympattiy  with,  vocational  ediica- 
llon,  one  of  whom  shall  be  a representa- 
tive of  employes  and  one  of  employers. 
A tight  was  put  up  against  any  such 
"Intrusion  of  tho  layman"  as  this  little 
representation. 

Tho  ni^w  Indiana  vocational  education 
law  also  provides  for  a local  "advisory 


rommltlcc  composed  of  members  repre- 
.Mi’iiiliig  local  Ir.-idi’s.  Industries  and  occu- 
pations" to  "counsel  with  and  advise"  the 
local  school  boardi  and  school  ofilrirs 
where  vocational  schools  arc  esiabitslied. 
but  tbcsi'  "advisory  boards"  ari!  to  b« 
created  "under  a scheme  to  be  aplirovetl 
ti.v  I he.  state  board  of  cdiic.-itlon"  whose 
coiriposltlon  has  already  been  noted. 

Case  of  Tail  Wagging  the  Dog- 

Thi.s  was  a very  great  "victory,"  lait  it 
fnll.s  fur  sliort  of  inccling  tho  views  of 
tlio  more  advanced  type  of  inodcrnl.sts 
•such  as  lO.  U.  Cooley,  of  Chicago,  who 
looks  on  tho  conccs.slon  of  a possible 
three  places  on  a controlling  board  of 
thirteen  wltli  only  "advisory"  local  lay- 
men, as  liclng  a case  of  the  tall  trying 
to  wag  the  dog.  There  is  a real  demand 
for  a representative  school  cotitrol--ono 
that  will  .squarely  face  n«^w  conditions, 
and  not  hold  on  to  old  theories  and  cus- 
toms. Tho  lilghly  successful  Germans 
liave  established,  almost  universally,  local 
commllli  es  of  buslnefts  men,  manufactur- 
ers and  workmen,  who  control  tliese 
schools. 

Tho  grave  fear  here  in  Massachusetts, 
and  for  Indiana,  is  that  the  "school- 
master guild"  may  get  hold  of  and  con- 
trol vocational  education,  and  duplicate 
the  history  of  manual  training,  only  In 
this  Instance,  having  the  greater  oppor- 
tunity, it  may  make  the  whole  thing  more 
costly  and  less  beneficial. 

"To  my  mind,”  said  Charles  A.  Prosser 
when  dls^us.sing  the  new  Indiana  voca- 
tional education  law  in  the  offices  of  the 
National  Society  for  the  Promotion  of 
Industrial  Education,  recently,  "the  new 
Indiana  law  is  the  best  vocational  educa- 
tion legislation  yet  enacted  in  this  coun- 
try, but  more  than  the  best  law  is  neces- 
sary." That  afternoon,  lecturing  to  ad- 
vanced students  and  professors  at 
Columbia  university,  he  made  plain  what 
he  had  in  mind.  He  was  speaking  broadly 
—not  of  Indiana  or  anyone  state:  "If  we 
leave  this  to  the  tender  mercies  of  school- 
master.s,  superintendents  and  boards  of 
education,  it  will  be  a frost.”  He  pointed 
out  that  Massachusetts  Would  not  have 
got  far  had  not  the  break  come  with  the 
old  education  board  which  did  not  keep 
step  with  changing  times.  As  a result  a 
new  state  board  was  created  with  lay  es 
well  as  professional  representatives.  He 
told  of  the  general  disposition  of  school 
men  to  capture,  and  their  determination 
to  run  vocational  education,  and  to  resent 
"outside  Intnision.”  Then  he  referred  to 
the  original  failure  of  handling  nian- 
ual  training  and  gave  the  warning; 
"If  they  make  a failure  of  this— and  It 
will  be  a failure  In  five  «j-ears  if  It  is 
handled  from  the  old-ldea  point  of  view— 
the  schoolmasters  can  certainly  exp^t 
separate  boards  of  control."  And  he 
pointed  out  that  the  guild  would  lose 
prestige  seriously. 

Prosser  on  the  Indiana  Law. 

Referring  to  Indiana  specifically  in  his 
office  interview  Mr.  Prosser,  pointed  out 
the  one  thing  that,  more  than  all  else  In 
the  Indiana  law.  Is  to  determine  whether 
or  nbt  vocational  education  is  to  have  a 
show  for  success  there.  The  new  law  pro- 
vides that  "the  state  superintendent  of 
public  instruction,  with  the  advice  and 
approval  of  the  state  board  of  education" 
(as  reorganized)  "shall  appoint  a deputy 
superintendent  in  charge  of  industrial  and 
domestic  education":  and  in  co-operation 
with  Purdue  university,  the  state  superin- 
tendent shall  appoint  a supervising  agent 
in  agricultural  education.  On  the  wise  se- 
lection of  capable  men,  having  tlie  practi- 
cal broad,  new-ldea  view,  and  on  the 
freedom  or  restrictions  Imposed  on  tliem 
by  the  dominating  "schoolmaster”  Influ- 


VOCATIONAL  EDUCATION 


13 


ences  depends,  in  Mr.  Prosser’s  opinion, 
the  success  or  failure  of  vocational  edu- 
cation in  Indiana. 

Those  who  have  followed  the  reviews  of 
the  different  types  of  Industrial  and  agri- 
cultural schools  must  have  been  impressed 
with  the  fact  that  if  it  is  to  be  vocational 
education  the  teachers  must  primarily 
come  from  the  Industry  and  not  the 
schoolroom.  They  can  not  be,  in  the  in- 
dustrial schools,  of  the  type  of  manual 
training  teachers  of  whom  Mr.  Cooley  re- 
fers when  he  tells  how,  when  superintend- 
ent of  the  Chicago  schools,  he  had  to  send 
out  their  saws  to  be  sharpened  because 
they  did  not  know  how  to  sharpen  their 
tools:  nor  of  the  type  of  agriculturist  who 
had  to  have  his  class  plowing  done  be- 
cause he  did  not  know  how. 

A Typical  Pedagogical  Notion. 

The  direction  can  not  fall  into  the  hands 
of  that  class  typified  by  a very  well 
known  western  educator  who  recently 
came  to  those  in  charge  of  the  Massachu- 
setts vocational  education  work  to  lay 
before  them  his  bright  new  plan  of  teach- 
ing vocational  education  in  his  state — a 
plan  which  he  proposes  to  put  into  effect. 
He  had  discovered,  by  deep  pedagogical 
thinking,  that  the  120  complicated  ma- 
chines used  in  making  a pair  of  shoes 
have  just  one  great  principle  in  common. 
It  Is  “a  rotary  part.”  He  rightly  advanced 
the  theory  that  the  most  perfect  adapta- 
tion of  rotation  to  industry  is  in  the  wood 
turner.  He  therefore  proposed— and  pro- 
poses—to  equip  his  schools  with  wood- 
turning  machines  and  thus  turn  out  work- 
ers equipped  to  go  into  the  shoe  trade. 

The  Individual  teacher  in  manual  train- 
ing must  have  the  trade  first.  He  must 
come  from  the  industry  and  know  it,  and 
then  take  on  the  art  of  teaching  it.  Mas- 
sachusetts has  a public  night  school, 
training  such  foremen  to  teach.  In  voca- 
tional education  the  boys  and  girls  are 
aiming  directly  at  a “Job,”  and  no  school 
teacher  with  a superficial  theory  of  the 
job  or  of  the  machines  can  command  the 
respect  of  the  boy  or  girl  who  wants  effi- 
ciency to  get  a 30b.  In  this  new  field  of 
education  the  question  is  “Can  you  do  it?” 
noT  “What  do  you  think  about  it?”  Most 
of  the  new  field  is  in  the  “man’s”  world, 
whereas  the  “vocatlonallsts”  note  the 
dominating  feminine  Influence  in  the  pr.es- 
ent  school  system— and  attribute  the  boys’ 
disposition  to  get  out,  in  large  measure  to 
that  fact. 

Danger  of  Waste  In  Buildings. 

■ Another  danger  is  the  tendency  to  want 
fine  buildings,  with  a surplus  of’-  equip- 
ment. If  this  extreme  is  followed,  the 
public  school  plants  being  taken  as  stand- 
-ards,  vocational  education  will  go  bank- 
rupt in  a hurry.  The  articles  published 
have  shown  that  abandoned  factories  and 
city  schoolhouses,  and  city  buildings  in 
low  rent  districts,  make  fine  vocational 
educational  plants  and  present  certain 
advantages.  In  the  country  the  abandoned 
schoolhouses  could  be  used  for  agricul- 
tural schools  when  separate  buildings  are 
needed. 

These  are  only  a few  of  the  dangers 
lying  in  wait  for  vocational  education; 
But  they  are  well  worth  bearing  in  mind 
when  the  matter  is  taken  up. 


A GREAT  NATIONAL  ASSET. 

The  presence  in  any  society  of  a rela- 
tively large  proportion  of  skilful  and  in- 
telligent workers  and  directors  of  these 
workers  constitutes  a national  asset;  and 
any  country  permitting  a large  propor- 
tion of  its  youth  to  grow  to  maturity 
untrained  as  regards  skill  and  as  re- 
guards habits  of  industry,  is  thereby  im- 
pairing the  quality  of  its  national  endow- 
ment.—David  Snedden,  Commissionher  of 
Hducatlon  for  Massachusetts. 


Great  Sums  Spent  on  Institu- 
tions That  Produced  Little 
Effect  on  Industry. 


FAULTS  IN  THEIR  PLANNING 


Failures  in  Some  States  and  Under 
Same  Laws  by  Which  Notable  Suc- 
cesses Have  Been  Achieved. 


[By  E.  I.  Lewis,  Staff  Correspondent  of  The- 
Indianapolis  News] 

SPRINGFIELD,  Mass.,  May  6.— Thera 
is  a strong  and  natural  inclination  on  the 
part  of  most  propagandists  to  bestow 
praise  liberally  on  their  proposal  and  to 
shut  their  eyes  to  failures.  In  all  the 
scores  of  pamphlets  and  books  on  voca- 
tional education  that  have  been  used  as 
handbooks  in  investigating  the  vocational 
education  problem,  no  reference  has  been 
observed  to  several  notable  flunks.  Still 
these  failures  should  be  red  danger  sig- 
nals to  Indiana,  the  latest  state  to  commit 
itself  to  vocational  education. 

For  example:  Massachusetts  has  two 
great  dominating  industries— textile  and 
shoe  manufacture.  It  is  almost  the  na- 
tional center  of  these  industries.  Massa- 
chusetts was  the  first  state  to  commit 
itself  to  vocational  education.  It  has  had 
state  aid  and  state  standards  for  voca- 
tional education  for  seven  years.  Still 
these  great  industries  have  not  been 
touched.  Back  as  far  as  1895  Massachu- 
setts recognized  jthe  commanding  impor- 
tance of  the  textile  industry— cotton  and 
wool— and  began  the  establishment  and 
maintenance  of  textile  schools.  Three  big 
schools,  located  at  New  Bedford,  Lowell 
and  Fall  River,  represent  with  equipment 
an  Investment  of  over  $3,000,000,  and  the 
annual  appropriations  are  so  big  that  a 
state  protest  has  gone  up. 

Costly  School  Buildings. 

The  school  buildings  are  great  stone  and 
brick  structures— the  one  at  Lowell  looks 
as  big  and  Imposing  as  a castle  on  the 
Rhine.  The  equipment  of  the  schools  is 
marvelous— cost  great  fortunes— and  in 
every  respect  the  schools  are  wonderful, 
except  that  they  have  no  students  to 
speak  of  and  are  having  no  effect  on  the 
Industry.  To  say  that  they  are  wholly 
negative  would  be  to  overlook  the  fact 
that,  .operating  as  night  schools,  they  do 
draw  a great  many  textile  workers,  but 
a recent  report  of  a special  state  investi- 
gating committee  seems  to  leave  no  doubt 
that  they  are  a tremendous  failure  as  real 
day  schools. 

If  there  is  one  justification  above  all 
others  for  vocational  education  at  public 
expense  it  is  that  it  will  return  what  Ger- 
many has  got— a national  or  local  effi- 
ciency which  means  better,  cheaper  and 
more  skilled  production  which  benefits 


not  only  the  worker  but  enriches  the  lo- 
cality or  nation.  The  textile  schools  have 
not  delivered  the  goods. 

Fault  of  Manufacturera, 

In  this  instance  the  fault  seems  to  lie 
with  the  manufacturers,  who  are  said  to 
be  more  interested  in  obtaining  tariffs  at 
Washington  than  in  solving  problems  of 
efficiency;  and  in  gathering  in  great 
hordes  of  southern  Europeans  and  pay- 
ing them  small  wages,  than  participating 
in  developing,  as  Germany,  Switzerland, 
England  and  other  countries  have  done, 
a highly  educated,  efficient,  national  in- 
dustry—a fact  made  the  more  grievous 
because  the  tariff  levied  is  in  the  name 
of  “the  American  workingman.” 

In  the  state  investigation,  just  closed, 
letters  were  sent  out  to  manufacturers, 
asking  for  information.  One-half  of  those 
addressed  replied,  and  this  half,  repre- 
senting probably  60  per  cent,  of  the  pro- 
duction, showed  that  the  amazing  total 
of  only  eighty-five  men  trained  in  the 
textile  schools  and  employed  by  them. 
Other  investigations  reveal  that  the  in- 
dustry is  carried  on  (though  the  nation 
is  taxed  to  pay  “American  wages”)  on 
such  a low  wage  .scale  that  on  an  average 
the  entire  body  of  workers  changes  every 
six  years,  and  most  of  them  are  un- 
skilled foreigners. 

Labor  and  Capital  Must  Be  Interested. 

Though  Governor  Douglas,  a noted  shoe 
manufacturer,  was  responsible  for  the 
general  vocational  legislation,  seven  years 
ago,  there  has  been  complete  failure  to 
touch  the  shoe  Industry.  There  the  fault 
lies  with  the  local  labor  unions,  though 
organized  labor,  as  represented  by  the 
A.  F.  of  L.,  is  one  of  the  sponsors  of  the 
national  movement  for  vocational  edu- 
cation. 

These  two  notable  failures  should  not 
be  ignored.  They  point  out  to  Indiana 
the  fact  that  both  the  employing  and 
employed  class  must  be  Interested  and 
join  in  any  scheme  or  specific  undertak- 
ing of  vocational  education  to  make  It 
effective.  In  fact,  the  best  example  of 
effective  vocational  education  Is  In  th» 
Beverly-Qulncy  type  described  at  length, 
in  which  the  Industry  is  calling  for  and 
trying  to  develop  great  efficiency. 

The  textile  failure  points  to  another 
defect.  These  great  textile  schools  were 
established  to  develop  superiors  of  vari- 
ous sorts — not  the  average  worker.  The 
aim  now  in  vocational  schools  is  to  raise 
Industry,  as  well  as  citizenship,  by  edu- 
cating at  public  expense  the  ordinary 
worker,  and  then  making  it  possible  for 
him  later  to  advance. 

An  Ohio  CIty'a  Failure. 

Another  failure  is  registered  by  a great 
Ohio  city.  To  single  it  out  by  name  would 
excite  local  pride  controversy.  The  fact 
generally  recognized  from  Chicago  to 
Boston,  however,  is  that  it  has  made  a 
great  fizzle  of  vocational  education,  while 
Cincinnati,  working  under  the  same  law, 
has  made  a success.  The  reason  was 
tha  t the  “schoolmaster”  crowd  got  in  con- 
trol. made  vocational  education  “cul- 
tural,” and  the  boys  and  girls  who  had 
dropped  out  of  the  public  schools  because 
they  were  not  getting  what  they  and 
their  parents  wanted,  were  not  fooled. 
You  can’t  fool  a boy  who  has  his  mind 
made  up  to  learn  a trade,  nor  a girl  who, 
under  economic  pressure,  is  headed  for  a 
job.  If  they  can’t  get  it  through  the 
school  they  go  direct  into  the  “blind  alley 
job.” 

Pseudo-vocational  education  is  the 
worst  kind  of  failure,  and  a very  ex- 
pensive one,  too.  On  the  other  hand,  the 
right  kind  should— as  in  the  case  of  some 
European  countries— pa.v  tremendously  in 
national  wealth  and  personal  contentment. 
Professor  Carver,  of  Harvard,  the  other 
day  recalled  the  fact  that  “the  most  valu- 
able natural  resources  are  our  people,  and 
that  we  are  wasting  people  more  than  we 
are  wasting  anything  else.”  They  d* 


14 


VOCATIONAL  EDUCATION 


not  wish  to  bo  wasf^p.d— these  boys  anrt 
grirls,  as  the  Massadiusotts  vocational 
schools  show,  but  they  can't  bo  fooled  by 
rigging  up  the  old  education  In  new  tog- 
gery. They  want  "the  goods”  taught  by 
people  who  know  the  thing' as  it  ts  act\i- 
ally,  not  theoretically,  done,  and  they 
want  It  directly  applied. 

For  Those  of  Working  Age. 

Vocational  education  leads  always  to 
the  borders  of  the  great  subjects  of  eco- 
nomics and  politics— the  latter  used  In  Us 
broad  sense.  It  is  impossjible  always  to 
<oUow  where  it  leads,  but  In  closing  this 
■cries  of  articles  It  Is  well  to  pay  atten- 
tion to  on^  thing— the  protest  that  voca- 
tional education  Is  opposed  to  liberal  edu- 
cation and  is  pot  democratic  Inasmuch  as 
It  creates  a ‘'laboring  class.”  Except  for 
the  manual  training  and  other  pre-voca- 
tional  exercises  and  studies,  in  the  grades, 
vocational  education,  as  now  spoken  of, 
does  not  begin  until  the  boy  or  girl  Is 
fourteen  years  of  age  and  Is,  generally, 
free  to  go  out  of  school— and  so  often  dots 
go  out.  It  is  aimed  to  make  him  or  her 
a skilled  or  useful  worker  Instead  of  a 
“blind  alley  job”  child.  Already  the  child 
should  have  acquired  during  the  compul- 
sory schooling  years,  some  general  liberal 
education,  but  in  all  of  the  vocational 
courses  that  have  been  examined,  there 
has  been  found  a continuation  of  aca- 
demic education  in  forms  closely  applied 
to  the  trade  or  Industry. 

Everywhere,  though  the  tendency  now 
Is  to  increase  the  amount  of  time  given 
to  the  pursuit  of  definite  Industrial  train- 
ing, great  stress  Is  being  laid,  as  in  Ger- 
many, on  making  the  child  a "good  clti- 
zen”— a man,  or  woman,  as  well  as  a 
worker. 

Meaning  of  Efficiency  Taught. 

Even  the  little  girls  in  the  Boston  and 
Manhattan  trade  schools  are  shown  how 
bad  a thing  it  is  for  industry— men  and 
women  workers  and  production— for  girls 
to  quit  school  before  they  have  finished 
their  training  and  accept  work  at  very 
low  wages.  At  the  same  time  they  are 


shown- -and  It  Is  tho  thing  tliat  keeps 
them  In  ''cliuol-  that  work  for  higher  em- 
cleiicy  and  lietier  understandltig  i>f  the 
m.inlfold  sides  of  IrjduHtry  means  a b|g 
final  Improvement  In  wages,  not  only  for 
thomselvi-H  l)Ut  for  the  benefit  of  all. 
These  children  are  taught.  In  all  thesn 
courses,  nmctlcal  sanitation;  Instructed 
In  the  rlgnl.s  of  workers  and  their  obliga- 
tions to  society  and  their  fellow-workers; 
and  It  Ims  been  shown  iiow  they  are  in- 
structed not  onl.v  how  to  make  better 
wages,  blit  al.so  how  to  keep  homes  and 
clilldren  and  perform  those  other  services 
w'bich  go  to  nuike  up  not  only  an  elilelent, 
but  an  enlightened,  W'orker. 

It  Is  a simple,  yet  typical  declaration, 
tbi.s  first  jiaragrnph  of  the  Philadelphia 
public  voeiillonal  school.^'  oulltno  of 
work:  "Tlie  purpose  of  the  trade  schools 
i.s  to  develop  intelligent  workingmen  and 
promote  good  citizenship.” 

Effect  on  Citizenship. 

Side  by  side  with  this  may  bo  placed 
this  excerpt  from  C.  A.  Prosser'.-j  “Prac- 
tical Arts  ajid  Vocational  Guidance": 

".Since  they  must  work  somewhere, 
most  of  these  children  fthosn  who  drop 
out  of  .school]  find  their  wav.  largely 
by  accident,  into  low-grade  skilled  or 
unskilled  occupations— the  great  cnlld 
employing  industries  and  enterprises 
w'blcli  arc  always  wide  open  at  the 
bottom,  but  closed  at  the  top,  so  far 
as  permanent,  desirable  employment  Is 
concerned.  Here,  because  their  work 
lacks  purpose  and  hope,  they  drift 
about  from  one  position  to  another, 
changing  In  Some  states.  It  is  said, 
from  one  unskilled  position  to  another 
on  an  average  once  every  four  months. 
The  resulting  moral  degradation  to  the 
child  and  the  tremendous  cost  to  the 
employer  can  not  be  estimated.  • • • 
They  find  themselves  at  sixteen  in  the 
.same  position  as  at  fourteen— starting 
life  without  any  adequate  preparation 
for  wage  earning.  Their  menial,  mo- 
notonous, more  or  less  automatic  work 
not  only  gives  no  skill,  but  also  arrests 
rather  'than  develops  Intelligence  and 
ambition.  Out  of  the  great  army  of 
children  who  leayo  the  schools  at 
fourteen  to  go  to  work  and  get  from 
those  schools  no  further  attention. 


come  the  nc'er-do-we.Ils.  t:  losfi-rs, 
the  iriiinps,  gHiiiblcrM,  firdstll iiIpb  jmil 
crlmlnali.-.  for  whose  <are  the  bIuI*- 
spetids  moil'  mofii-y  In  fn'iuil  and  '"f- 
ri'ctlonal  work  than  It  would  have  cost 
to  hgvi'  firpvi  tiled  lliein  from  bi'cntn- 
Ing  a burden  and  nif  nm  e to  hocIi  ly." 


drawn.  In  t'hlfugo  the  other  dav  Ihren 
biitidri  d uncmployi  d men  laid  biir«'  I heir 
Houb'.  competing  for  a $1  bill.  In  brlelly 
answering  thi.s  (|in-Nllon:  "What  are  the 
real  cauHi'M  of  loneliness  and  lack  of  f^m- 
ploymciil  f.'onBpli- iioiiH  |n  the  aiiHwcrii 
Was  the  often  refiealed  a.soertlon  ItK'luderJ 
In  ibe  winni  r's  Humnmry:  "2.  Inconi- 
Iielcn<-y.  both  from  birth  and  bad  babita: 
<'iii|iloyer,s  take  only  the  bcHi  men.  Wo 
are  not  the  best,  so  they  do  not  take  ns 
until  they  arc  obliged.” 

What  a contrast  to  the  boys  in  the 
Beveny  vocational  school,  whose  two  and 
a half  year's  training  not  only  raises  tlio 
capital  value  of  each  from  J.5.WJ0  to  $16  OfH) 
or  $18,(XHJ.  but  makes  thi-in  able  to  work 
Oil  muc'liinr^H  In  thc*Ir  InduHlry  onej  to 
linpruvo  11  In  pj’udm  tlon  ond  oppllonc  oh. 
Germany,  poor  In  lesoiirces,  has  by 
production  of  men,”  become  great  among 
nations.  There  Is  olijectlon  to  contrasting 
Amerbnn  eondjtlons  with  Gennany's-- 
our  .social  str.-ita,  It  Is  pointed  out,  are 
not  horizontal,  but  are  vert  leal  and 
dynamic  with  ambitions.  Ko  long  Jiow- 
ever.  u.s  the  United  States  sells  its  raw 
eotton  abroad  at  14  cents  and  biivs  It 
back  at  $40  from  the  Hwlss,  am/  in 
uiRno.,  from  olnioHt  virgin  soli,  grown 
only  14.2  bushels  of  wheat  to  the  a-To 
compared  with  iJenmark's  42  bu.sbels' on 
soil  cultivated  for  ten  centuries,  these 
vocational-education  countries  serve  well 
as  examples  of  what  can  be  accomplished 
It  is  also  pointed  out  that  It  Is  well 
to  remember  that  economic  stress  will 
become  greater  all  the  time,  and  that 
nothing  is  so  great  a national  menace 
as  discontented.  Incompetent,  idle  masses 
The  British  workers'  Investigating  com- 
mittee which  went  to  Germany,  found 
that  the  growing  substitution  of  German 
wares  for  British  wares,  the  increasing 
wealth  of  Germany,  and  the  comparative 
quiet  and  contentment  in  Germany  was 
largely  attributable  to  the  great  imperial 
Blsmarckan  vocational  education  system. 


% 


i. 


VOCATIONAL  EDUCATION 


15 


The  Indiana  Vocational  Laws 


The  Indiana  legislature  of  1911  authorized  and  provided  for  the  creation  of  “a  commission  to  investigate  the  needs  of 
education  In  the  different  industries  of  Indiana  and  how  far  the  needs  are  met  by  existing  institutions  and  what  new  form 
of  educational  effort  may  be  advisable.”  Thomas  R.  Marshall,  tlien  Governor  of  Indiana,  appointed  the  members  of  that  coiv 
mission.  They  were  John  G.  Brown,  a farmer,  of  Monon;  Prank  D.  McElroy,  principal  of  the  Hammond  high  school;  FraCif 
Huffy,  secretary  of  tlie  "United  Brotherhood  of  Carpenters  and  Joiners— one  of  the  labor  unions  of  largest  membership  t® 
Lhis  country:  Thomas  G.  Pitzgibbon,  superintendent  of  the  Columbus  schools;  John  L.  Ketehani.  a manufacturer,  of  Indianft"- 
polis;  Ulysses  G.  Weatherly,  head  of  the  department  of  economics  In  Indiana  university,  and  Will  A.  "yarling,  a lawyer  and 
farmer,  of  Shelbyville.  John  A.  Lapp,  director  of  the  Indiana  legislative  and  administrative  reference  bureau,  performed  ths 
service  of  secretary  of  the  commission.  This  commission’s  work  resulted,  in  the  legislature  of  1913,  in  enactments  provid- 
ing a broad  vocational  education  policy  for  Indiana.  The  following  Indiana  vocational  education  law  was  the  result  of  the 
enactment  of  a bill  introduced  in  the  lower  house  by  Representative  Joseph  H.  Stahl,  of  Fountain  county,  and  in  the 
upper  house  by  Senator  William  A.  Yarling,  of  Sheiby  county.  It  was  approved  by  Governor  Samuei  L.  Ralston  on  February 
22,  1913. 

In  addition  to  this  law  a notable  and  vital  revision  was  made  in  the  truancy  laws  of  the  state.  The  control  of  the 
state  over  the  child  was  extended  two  years  by  the  provision  that  children  between  the  ages  of  fourteen  and  sixteen  years 
must  be  in  school  or  at  work.  The  revision  a, Iso  provides  that  they  must  get  working  certificates  from  the  school  author- 
ities, and  that  if  they  leave  the  employment  to  which  they  are  thus  certified,  the  employer  must  give  notice  to  the  school  au- 
thorities. This  revision  is  looked  on  as  i)roviding  fundamen,tat  conditions  for  vocational  education  work,  without  which  th« 
following  law  would  be  incomplete  and  lame. 


Section  1.  Be  it  enacted  by  the  general 
assembly  of  the  state  of  Indiana,  the 
following  words  and  phrases  as  used  in 
this  act,  shall,  unless  a different  mean- 
ing is  plainly  required  by  the  context, 
have  the  following  meaning; 

1.  “"Vocational  education”  shall  mean 
any  education  the  controlling  purpose  of 
which  is  to  fit  for  profitable  employment. 

2.  “Industrial  education”  shall  mean 
that  form  of  vocational  education  which 
fits  for  the  trades,  crafts  and  wage 
earning  pursuits,  _including  the  occupa- 
tion of  girls  and  women  carried  on  in 
stores,  workshops,  and  other  establish- 
ments. 

3.  “Agricultural  education”  shall  mean 
that  form  of  vocational  education  which 
fits  for  the  occupation  connected  with 
the  tillage  of  the  soil,  the  care  of  domes- 
tic animals,  forestry  and  other  wage 
earning  or  productive  work  on  the  farm. 

4.  “Domestic  science”  education  shall 
mean  that  form  of  vocational  education 
which  fits  for  occupations  connected 
with  the  household. 

5.  “Industrial,  agricultural  or  domestic 
science  school  or  department”  shall  mean 
an  organization  of  courses,  pupils  and 
teachers  designed  to  give  either  indus- 
trial, agricultural  or  domestic  science 
education  as  herein  defined,  under  a 
separate  director  or  head. 

6.  "Approved  industrial,  agricultural  or 
, domestic  science  school  or  department” 

shall  mean  an  organization  under  a sep- 
arate director  or  head,  of  courses,  pupils 
and  teachers  approved  by  the  state  board 
of  education  designed  to  give  either  in- 
dustrial, agricultural  or  domestic  science 
education  as  herein  defined. 

7.  “Evening  class”  in  an  industrial, 
agricultural  or  domestic  science  school 
or  department  shall  mean  a class  giving 
such  training  as  can  be  taken  by  persons 
already  employed  during  the  working 
day,  and  which  in  order  to  be  called  vo- 
cational must  in  its  instruction,  deal  with 
the  subject  matter  of  the  day  employ- 
ment, and  be  so  carried  on  as  to  relate 
to  the  day  employment;  but  evening 
classe.s  in  domestic  science  relating  to 
the  home  shall  be  open  to  all  women 
over  seventeen  who  are  employed  in 
any  capacity  during  the  day. 

8.  “Part  time  classes”  in  an  industrial, 
agricultural  or  domestic  science  school 
or  department,  shall  mean  a vocational 
class  for  persons  giving  a .part  of  their 
working  time  to  profitable,  employment 
and  receiving  in  the  part  time  school 
or  department,  instruction  complimentary 
to  the  practical  work  carried  on  in  such 
employment.  To  give  a part  of  their 
working  time,  such  persons  must  give 
a part  of  each  day,  week  or  longer  period 
to  such  part  time  class  during  the  period 
in  which  it  is  in  session. 


Establishment  of  Schools. 

Sec.  2.  Any  school  city,  town  or  town- 
ship may  through  its  board  of  school 
commissioners  or  township  trustee,  estab- 
lish vocational  schools  or  departments  for 
industrial,  agricultural  and  domestic  sci- 
ence education  in  the  same  manner  as 
other  schools  and  departments  are  estab- 
lished and  may  maintain  the  same  from 
tlie  common  school  funds  or  from  a spe- 
cial tax  levy  not  to  exceed  10  cents  on 
each  $100  of  taxable  property,  or  partly 
from  the  common  school  funds  and  partly 
from  such  tax.  School  cities,  towns  and 
townships  are  authorized  to  maintain  and 
carry  on  instruction  in  elementary  do- 
mestic science,  industrial  and  agricultural 
subjects  as  a part  of  the  regular  course 
of  instruction. 

Classes — How  Divided. 

Sec.  3.  In  order  that  instruction  in  the 
principles  and  pracUce  of  the  arts  may 
go  on  together,  vocational  schools  and 
departments  for  industrial,  agricultural 
and  domestic  science  education  may  of- 
fer instruction  in  day,  part  time  and 
evening  classes.  Such  instruction  shall 
be  of  less  than  college  grade  and  .be 
designed  to  meet  the  vocational  needs  of 
persons  over  fourteen  years  of  age  who 
are  able  lo  profit  by  the  instruction  of- 
fered. Attendance  upon  such  day  or  part 
time  classes  shall  be  restricted  to  persons 
over  fourteen  and  under  twenty-five 
years  of  age:  and  upon  such  evening 
classes  to  persons  over  seventeen  years  ofi 
age. 

Co-operative  Schools. 

Section  4.  Two  or  more  school  cities, 
towns  or  townships  or  combinations 
thereof,  may  co-operate  to  establish  and 
maintain  vocational  schools  or  depart- 
ments for  industrial,  agricultural  or 
domestic  science  education  or  in  super- 
vising the  same  whenever  the  school 
board  or  township  trustees  of  such 
school  cities,  towns  or  townships  shall 
so  determine  and  apportion  the  cost 
thereof  among  the  cities,  towns  and 
townships  co-operating.  "Whenever  such 
co-operative  schools  or  departments  have 
been  determined  upon  by  any  school 
cities,  towns  or  townships,  or  combina- 
tion thereof,  the  presidents  of  the  school 
boards  of  the  cities  or  towns  and  the 
township  trustees  of  the  townships  co- 
operating shall  constitute  a board  for 
the  management  of  such  school  or  de- 
partment, such  board  may  adopt  for  a 
period  of  one  year  or  more,  a plan  of 
organization,  administration  and  support 
for  such  school  or  department  and  the 
plan,  if  approved  by  the  state  board  of 
education,  shall  constitute  a binding  con- 
tract between  cities,  towns  and  town- 
ships entering  into  a co-operation  to  sup- 
port such  schools  and  courses  which 
shall  be  cancelled  or  annulled  only  by 
the  vote  of  a majority  of  the  school 
boards  or  township  trustees  of  such 
school  cities,  towns  or  townships  and 
the  approval  of  the  state  board  of 
education. 


Studies — How  Outlined. 

Sec.  5.  Elementary  agriculture  shall  be 
taught  in  the  grades  in  all  towns  and 
township  schools;  elementary  industrial 
work  shall  be  taught  in  the  grades  in  all 
city  and  town  schools,  and  elementary  do- 
mestic science  shall  be  taught  in  the 
grades'  in  all  city,  town  and  township 
schools.  The  state  board  of  education 
shall  outline  a course  of  study  for  each  of 
such  grades  as  they  may  determine,  which 
shall  be  followed  as  a minimum  require- 
ment. The  board  shall  also  outline  a 
course  of  study  in  agriculture,  domestic 
science  and  industrial  work,  which  they 
may  require  city,  town  and  township  high 
schools  to  offer  as  regular’  courses.  Aftaff 
September  1,  1015,  all  teachers  required  to 
teach  elementary  agriculture,  industrial 
work  or  domestic  science  shall  have 
passed  an  examination  in  such  subjects 
prepared  by  the  state  board  of  education. 

State  Board  of  Education — Duties. 

Sec.  6.  The  state  board  of  education  is 
hereby  authorized  and  directed  to  investi- 
gate and  to  aid  in  the  introduction  of  in- 
dustrial, agricultural  and  domestic  science 
education,  to  aid  cities,  towns  and  town- 
ships to  initiate  and  superintend  the  es- 
tablishment and  maintenance  of  schools 
and  departments  for  the  aforesaid  forms 
of  education;  and  to  supervise  and  ap- 
prove such  schools  and  departments,  as 
hereinafter  provided.  The  board  of  edu- 
cation shall  make  a report  annually  to  the 
general  assembly,  describing  the  condition 
and  progress  of  industrial,  agricultural 
and  domestic  science  education  during  the 
year  and  making  such  recommendations 
as  they  may  deem  advisable. 

State  Board  Comprised  of. 

Sec.  7.  The  state  board  of  education 
shall  consist  of  the  superintendent  of 
public  instruction,  the'  presidents  of  Pur- 
due university,  the  State  university  and 
the  State  Normal  school,  the  superintend- 
ents of  schools  of  the  three  cities  having 
the  largest  enumeration  of  children  for 
school  purposes  annually  reported  to  the 
state  superintendent  of  public  instruction, 
as  provided  by  law,  three  citizens  active- 
ly engaged  in  educational  work  in  the 
state,  at  least  one  of  whom  shall  be  a 
county  superintendent  of  schools,  and 
three  persons  actively  interested  in,  and 
of  known  sympathy  with,  vocational  edu- 
cation, one  of  whom  shall  be  a repre- 
sentative of  employes  and  one  of  em- 
ployers. 

The  Governor  shall  appoint  the  mem- 
bers pf  the  board,  except  the  ex  officio 
members,  for  a term  of  four  years. 

In  the  first  instance  one  member  shall 
be  appointed  for  two  years,  one  for  three 
years  and  one  for  four  years.  The  present, 
appointive  members  shall  serve  until  the 
expiration  of  the  time  for  which  they 
were  appointed.  The  Governor  shall  fill 
all  vacancies  occurring  in  the  board  for 
the  unexpired  term,  and  each  member 
shall  serve  until  his  successor  shall  have 
been  appointed  and  qualified. 

The  superintendent  of  public  instruc- 


16 


VOCATIONAL  EDUCATION 


« 


■ 

tlon  shall,  ex  ofllclo,  be  president  of  the 
board,  and  In  hts  absence  the  inenibi-rs 
present  shall  elect  a president  pro  tctn- 
pore.  The  board  shg,!!  elect  one  of  Us 
members  secretary  and  treasurer,  who 
shall  have  the  custody  of  Its  records,  pa- 
pers and  effects,  and  shall  keei»  minutes 
of  Its  proceedings.  The  records,  papers, 
effects  and  minutes  shall  be  kept  at  the 
office  of  the  siiperintendent,  and  shall 
be  open  for  Inspection.  The  board  shall 
meet  upon  the  call  of  the  president,  or  a 
ma.iority  of  Its  members,  at  such  place 
In  the  state  as  may  be  designated  in  the 
call.  They  shall  adopt  and  use  a seal, 
on  the  face  of  which  shall  be  the  words 
“Indiana  state  board  of  education,”  or 
such  other  device  or  motto  as  the  board 
may  direct,  an  immpresslon  and  written 
deserpition  of  which  shall  be  recorded 
on  the  minutes  of  the  board  and  filed 
in  the  office  of  the  secretary  of  state, 
which  seal  shall  be  used  for  the  authen- 
tication of  the  acts  of  the  board  and  the 
important  acts  of  the  superintendent  of 
public  Instruction. 

The  hoard  shall  have  all  the  powers 
and  perform  all  the  duties  now  Imposed 
by  law  on  the  state  board  of  education. 

Appointments — How  Made. 

Sec.  8.  The  state  superintendent  of 
public  instruction,  with  the  advice  and 
approval  of  the  state  board  of  education, 
shall  appoint  a deputy  superintendent  in 
charge  of  Industrial  and  domestic  science 
education-  who  shall  act  under  the  di- 
rection of  the  state  superintendent  of 
public  instruction  in  carrying  out  the 
provisions  of  this  act.  The  salary  and 
term  of  office  of  such  deputy  shall  be 
fixed  by  the  board  and  he  shall  be  re- 
movable by  the  board  only  for  cause. 

The  state  superintendent,  with  the  ap- 
proval of  the  state  board  of  education,  is 
authorized  to  co-operate  with  Purdue  unl- 
>’crslty  in  the  appointment  of  some  person 
actively  connected  with  the  agricultural 
extension  work  at  Purdue  as  an  agent  in 
supervising  agricultural  education,  who 
shall  serve  in  a dual  capacity  as  an  agent 
of  the  state  superintendent  and  an  assist- 
ant at  Purdue  university.  The  board  and 
the  authorities  of  Purdue  university  may 
fix  the  proportion  of  the  salary  of  such 
agent  to  be  borne  by  Ahe  state  and  by  the 
university.  Such  person  shad  be  subject 
to  removal  for  cause  by  the  state  board 
of  education. 

All  expenses  incurred  in  discharge  of 
their  duties  by  deputies  and  agents  shall 
bo  paid  by  the  state  from  funds  provided 
for  in  this  act. 

Advisory  Committee. 

Sec.  9.  Boards  of  education  or  town- 
ship trustees  administering  approved  vo- 
cational schools  and  departments  for  in- 
dustrial, agricultural  or  domestic  science 
education,  shall,  under  a scheme  to  be 
approved  by  the  state  board  of  education, 
appoint  an  advisory  committee  composed 
of  members  representing  local  trades,  in- 
dustries and  occupations.  It  shall  be  the 
duty  of  the  advi.sory  committee  to  counsel 
with  and  advise  the  board  and  other 
school  officials  having  the  management 
and  supervision  of  such  schools  or  depart- 
men  t.s. 

Admission  to  Schools — To  Whom 

Made. 

Sec.  10.  Any  resident  of  any  city,  town 
or  town.slilp  in  Indiana,  which  does  not 
maintain  an  approved  vocational  school 
or  department  for  Industrial,  agricultural 
or  domestic  science  elucatlon  offering  the 
tvpf  oi  training  which  he  desires,  may 
make  application  for  admission  to  such 
f .bool  or  department  inalntolned  hy  an- 
.it ...  I < It  V,  town  or  townslilp  or  any 
I ' 'joI  of  sceoijtiary  grafle'  maintaining  an 
apjoo.'d  Industrial,  ucrlciill ursil  or  do- 
rr., ilit  - ■ le;;r:'  ; ' hool  or  rl(;part7nent.  The 
nti.t.  i-'.ard  nt  eiliiraitlon,  who.se  di-clslon 
Bi.:  r be  filial,  n,ay  opp'ove  or  disapprove 
.■  i'  ll  appll':  I Hen  In  making  such  decl- 
I on  U.':  iiojird  fdiall  luko  Into  considera- 
tion tho  opportunltie'-  for  freo  vocational 


training  in  Ibc  coii'miiiiit v In  ■■  lii'h  lb. 
iippllciint  rc.iUlfs;  tii.-  llnn.iolel  of 

the  Community,  the  'ige.  >'C.  iirrueire  tion, 
aptitnd'  and  prevl'uis  rei  ord  of  tb-  iiiuill- 
eanl,  and  all  otlu  r reler  ant  cii  . iiin 
sta  nces. 

Tho  school  ■ ity  or  I.  ■<  n or  town,  li  n mi 
which  the  person  rr  sld.  : , 'vho  tcis  h'  ■ ii 
admitted  as  above  orovhlcd,  to  an 
proved  vocailonsi  .■"■hool  or  d.-part im  nt 
for  indust'lal.  agrtciilliiral  or  ■loni''ili<’ 
.science  cilucalion.  inaintainod  liy  aiioib»>r 
city,  town  or  towiishlii  or  ofh'-r  ol. 
shall  pa.v  such  tuillon  fee  ar  ma.'.  bi'  ll-cii 
by  the  state  hoard  of  education;  and  the 
state  shall  reimburse  such  school  rlty  or 
town  or  township  as  provided  for  In  this 
act.  If  any  school  city  or  town  or  town- 
ship neglects  or  refuses  to  pay  for  such 
tuition,  It  shall  be  liable  therefor  in  an 
action  of  contract  to  the  school  city  or 
town  or  township  or  cities  and  towns  and 
townships  or  other  school  maintaining  the 
school  which  the  pupil  with  the  approval 
of  the  said  board  attended. 

Compulsory  Attendance. 

Sec.  11.  In  case  the  board  of  education 
or  township  trustee  of  any  city,  town  or 
township  have  established  approved  voca- 
tional schools  for  the  in.struetlon  of 
youths  over  fourteen  years  of  age  who 
are  engaged  In  regular  employment.  In 
part  time  classes,  and  have  formally  ac- 
cepted the  provisions  of  this  section,  such 
board  of  tru.stees  are  authorized  to  re- 
quire all  youths  between  the  ages  of  four- 
teen and  sixteen  years  who  are  regularly 
employed,  to  attend  school  not  less  than 
five  hours  per  week  between  the  hours  of 
8 a.  m.  and  5 p.  m.  during  school  term. 

County  Agent — Petition. 

Section  12.  Whenever  twenty  or  more 
residents  of  a county,  who  are  actively 
interested  in  agriculture,  shall  tile  a peti- 
tion •with  the  county  board  of  pdu.^ation 
for  a county  agent,  together  witli  a de- 
posit of  $500.  to  be  used  in  defraying  ex- 
penses of  such  agent,  the  county  hoard 
of  education  shall  file  said  petition,  with- 
in thirty  days  of  its  receipt,  with  the 
county  council,  which  body  shall,  upon 
receipt  of  such  petition,  appropriate  an- 
nually the  sum  of  $1,500  to  be  used  in 
paying  the  salary  and  other  expenses  of 
said  county  agent.  When  the  county 
appropriation  has  been  made  the  county 
board  of  education  shall  apply  to  Purdue 
university  for  the  appointment  of  a 
county  agent  vi'hose  appointment  shall 
be  made  annually  and  be  subject  to 
the  approval  of  the  county  board  of 
education,  and  the  state  board  of  edu- 
cation. When  such  appointment  has 
been  made,  there  shall  be  paid  annually 
from  the  state  fund  provided  for  in  this 
act,  to  Purdue  university,  to  be  paid 
to  the  county  providing  for  a county 
agent,  an  amount  sufficient  to  pay  one- 
half  the  annual  salary  of  the  county 
agent  appointed  as  herein  provided: 
Provided,  that  not  more  than  $1,000  shall 
be  appropriated  to  any  one  county. 
Provided,  -further,  that  not  more  than 
thirty  (30)  counties  during  the  year  end- 
ing September  30,  1914;  and  sixty  (60) 
counties  during  the  year  ending  Sep- 
tember 30,  1915,  shall  be  entitled  to  state 
aid.  It  shall  be  the  duty  of  such  agent, 
under  the  supervision  of  Purdue  univer- 
sity, to  co-operate  with  farmers’  insti- 
tutes, farmers’  clubs  and  other  organiza- 
tions, conduct  practical  farm  demon- 
strations, boys’  and  girls’  clubs  and  con- 
test work  and  other  movements  for  the 
advancement  of  agriculture  and  country 
life  and  to  give  advice  to  farmers  on 
practical  farm  problems  and  aid  tlie 
county  superintendent  of  schools  and 
(he  teachers  in  giving  practical  educa- 
tion In  agriculture  and  domestic  science. 
The  county  board  of  education  Is  hereby 
authorized  to  tile  monthly  hills  covering 
.salfiry  and  cxfienses  of  county  agent,  the 
same  to  lie  approved  by  Purdue  nnivor- 
slty,  with  (lie  county  auditor  who  slia.ll 
<Iraw  Ills  warni.iit  or  warrantH  on  tho 
coiiil'ty  treasurer  for  tho  payment  of 
same. 


Cities  and  Towns — Reimbursed. 

' e.  t.'!.  Voi  allonal  ■ rliooW  or  rt'jpSTt- 
iii'  iil'.  f'li  tndn.' trial,  ai;rli'iiltur;il  an'i  do- 
im  tic  icii'"-  I iliicallon  .'hall,  no  long  SB 
Ih'*'-.  are  apiao’.'-'l  hv  tla  ■■•late  I'oarci  of 
■ 'lia.iliari  :i.'  to  oraan  izii  I ion.  loi  atlon, 
I'lMii'inii.t  i iiiirHi- . of  atii'l' , >|o:i  Ilfli  at  Irma 
o;  ti.o  li'v..  nietlio<i  i of  iii'lMniion.  eon- 
dltlon;  of  a'lnili '.ion,  eioi'lovini  Mt  of 
l.iiplh  n nd  I .» i.i  odll  Ul  < of  inorn  ' "listltuli! 
apiii'.V' il  vo'  .'itlonal  "choolr  or  ilepni  t- 
iiieiil;  . .Seho'il  elllea  and  towns  and 
townrtilp.'.  Ilia Intalning  .such  approved  vo- 
cational sehoola  ahall  receive  rclmburac- 
iiK-nt  aa  provided  In  this  act. 

State  Maintenance. 

Hce.  14.  The  state.  In  order  to  aid  In  the 
maintenance  of  approved  vocational 
school.'  or  dcpartiiients  for  Industrial,  ag- 
ricultural and  domc  dle  : 'ileneo  education, 
siiall.  a-s  iirovIdeU  In  tills  act,  pay  annually 
to  school  clllcfl  and  t'lwn'.  an'I  townships 
malpt  -liiing  such  achools  and  d'  part mi  nts 
an  aiMonnt  '-'lual  to  t wo-ltilrd  ’.  of  ihe  sum 
1 xpi'n'lcd  for  Instruction  In  voi’atlonal  and 
technical  ; ntijc' authorized  and  ap- 
proved II.  the  .itate  boarfl  Of  education. 
.s!in  h cost  of  instruction  shall  consist  of 
the  total  amoniit  raised  by  local  taxation 
and  expended  for  the  teachers  of  approved 
vocational  and  technical  subjects.  Scho'd 
citii'.s  and  towns  and  townships  that  have, 
paid  clalini  for  tuition  In  approved  vo- 
cal lonal  .schools  shall  he  reimbursed  liv 
the  state  as  provided  in  this  act,  to  the 
extent  of  one-half  the  sums  '-xpendefl  tiy 
such  school  cities  and  towns  and  town- 
ships in  payment  of  such  claims. 

Claims  for  Reimbursement. 

Sec.  15.  Any  school  city,  town  or  town- 
ship having ' claims  for  reimbursement 
against  the  state  under  the  provisions  of 
this  act  shall  pres.-nt  the  same  to  the 
state  hoard  of  edmation  on  or  before 
.luly  Ist  of  each  year  immediately  lol- 
lowing  the  completion  of  the  work  for 
which  they  are  entitled  to  relmbur.sement, 
from  the  state.  The  board  .shall  if  they 
approve  the  claim  authorize  Its  payment 
by  the  auditor  of  state  who  shall  there- 
upon draw  his  warrant  on  the  treasurer 
of  state  for  the  payment  of  the  amount 
due  such  school  city,  town  or  township, 
from  the  fund  provided  in  this  act 

Annual  Levy. 

Sec.  16.  To  provide  a state  fund  to 
carry  out  the  provisions  of  this  act, 
there  shall  be  levied  annually  as  a part 
of  the  state  common  school  levy  an  ad- 
ditional lew  of  one  cent  on  each  one 
hundred  dollars  of  taxable  property  in 
the  state,  which  shall  constitute  a fund 
for  the  purposes  of  this  act.  Any  part 
of  the  fund  remaining  at  the  close  of  any 
fiscal  vear  shall  be  placed  by  the  treas- 
urer of  state  in  a permanent  fund  for 
vocational  education,  the  proceeds  of 
which  shall  be  used  to  aid  in  carrying 
out  the  provisions  of  this  act. 

Salaries  and  Expenses. 

Sec.  17.  A sum  sufficient  to  pa,y  the  sal- 
aries and  expenses  of  the  deputies,  agents 
and  employes  in  carrying  out  the  pro- 
visions of  this  act,  and  an  amount  suffi- 
cient to  carry  out  the  provisions  of 
Section  12  is  hereby  appropriated  annual- 
ly for  two  years,  to  be  available  on  and 
after  April  1,  1913.  Thereafter  all  salaries 
and  expenses  shall  be  paid  from  the  fund 
provided  for  in  this  act. 

When  Effective. 

Sec.  18.  This  act  shall  take  effect  as  to 
the  provisions  for  state  aid  to  approved 
vocational  schools  at  the  beginning  of 
the  scliool  year  1914-1915.  All  other  pro- 
visions of  this  act.  including  the  pro- 
vlsion.s  for  a county  agent,  as  provided 
in  Section  12,  shall  he  in  force  from  and 
after  its  publication. 

Repeal. 

Sec.  19.  All  laws  and  iiarts  of  laws  ia 
conflict  herewith  are  hereby  repealed. 


